


It wasn't someplace I'd go

by TheCowsAteMyHomework



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:45:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 43,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3593430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCowsAteMyHomework/pseuds/TheCowsAteMyHomework
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a new way to meet a witness: half naked on the floor with two dead bodies in a puddle of blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting the Witness

_Ow… shit._ She dully supposed that this was exactly why her mother had always impressed upon her the pitfalls of hesitation. That was how one ended up shot. In the shoulder. And with a gun pressed to one’s head. _Sorry, Mom_.

            There was a sudden lurch as her captor yanked her around to face the door. _And a hostage. Hesitation gets you hostage._ Two men with guns stood near the door, weapons raised. One had a cowboy hat that would probably have amused her had she not been distracted by the disconcerting amount of blood she could feel making its way down her shoulder and side. She looked down. She regretted it. She looked back up at the newcomers. Cowboy Hat had lowered his gun as he came through the door. The shorter guy with him, who must have been his partner, kept his weapon up and pointed in her direction. Well, in the direction of the guy holding her, but that was basically her direction, and it was a bit close for comfort.

            “You’re gonna to want to lower your weapon.” Cowboy Hat sounded serious. Short-stack didn’t blink, and his weapon didn’t move.

            She winced as her captor dug the barrel of his gun a bit more firmly into the base of her skull. _They get the point asshole._ “An' I suggest you lower yours, 'less you wanna to be picking up pieces of her-” _BANG._

Before she had time to be startled by the shot whizzing past her head, she felt herself jerked backwards as the now-dead man behind her dragged her to the floor. After the initial shocks of the gunshot and the pain from her shoulder hitting the ground, she became skin-crawlingly aware of something wet and gooey on the side her face. There were certain things in life that one had to make peace with very quickly, else panic overtake them. Sometimes those things were grasshoppers that had jumped onto your face in a field in summer, or your baby cousin puking down your collar. Now it was brain matter splattered across her face and head. Pushing aside her revulsion, she gingerly reached to check her shoulder.

A hand firmly, but gently blocked her motion, and her own hand was placed carefully across her stomach. “Hey, easy there, lemme take a look at that.” A soft, business-like southern drawl drew her attention up to an equally business-like expression. She looked up to see Short-stack kneeling next to her. He pressed against her shoulder with one hand and undid the buttons of his overshirt with the other.

“ _Hnnnngggnnn.”_ The pressure on her should her had her gasping in pain. With deft efficiency, he moved her off of the body under her and flat onto the floor, and with apparent indifference to blood or sanctity of clothing, he replaced the hand on her shoulder with his shirt.

His proximity reminded her quite abruptly that she was wearing nothing but underwear. To be fair, before this fiasco she’d been dancing in front of a fair few people in just that anyway, and a bullet hole in the shoulder was more pressing than embarrassment over her lack of modesty. But having a man who wasn’t an anonymous patron up close made her want clothing. One more thing she had to make peace with before the discomfort overwhelmed her. _Oh, who gives a shit? There’s a hole in your shoulder._

A second later she felt a jacket tugged over her. She looked up, but Short-stack was looking intently past her at the door. “Thank you.”

“You’re gonna be fine. You aren’t coughing up blood, so he didn’t get a lung or anything. It’s just a flesh wound.”

She thought about that a moment. She felt a bit sluggish, but what he said made sense. She nodded weakly. “Comforting logic, that.”

“I thought so too.” With the sleeve of the shirt that was pressed into her shoulder, he began to wipe away some of the gore from the side of her face. That was nice of him. She looked up at him sideways. _Cute, this one._

She grimaced as a small shard of bone was wiped down her nose. “Sorry about your shirt.”

He looked down at her and chuckled. “I’ll survive.”

“Me too, we have so much in common.” He chuckled again. It was a comforting sound.

She was getting tired. Her head lolled to the side. _Oh._ The bodies of the other two dead men in the room came into her vision. The ones who hadn’t been saved by her hesitation. _Mom would have been proud._ At least it had been quick, two quick shots, one to each heart. It was easier to think of them in terms of anatomy.

One was face down. His nose probably would have hurt like a bitch if he weren’t dead. The other had fallen half on his back and half on his side with a chair tangled between his legs. His eyes were open, and she could see them rolled back. He didn’t look in pain or surprised. He didn’t look like anything. She started to feel unaccountably queasy. It wasn’t regret for saving herself. They’d meant her serious harm, and she knew she’d had no choice. She didn’t like that that had been her only choice. Perhaps she could have shot to wound, not kill. They’d have lived, maybe done something better with their lives. _Fat chance, dear._ She saw the wedding ring on his finger, turned her head into the floor, and puked.

The pressure from her shoulder disappeared momentarily as he pulled her away from the puddle of her own sick. Then the pressure reasserted itself and she felt the back of his hand wipe her mouth. _Wow, you are not squeamish._

“I’ve never killed anyone before,” She explained. Talking was starting to be hard. It took too much effort to properly enunciate words.

That soft drawl answered, “And what would have happened if you didn’t?”

 _What indeed?_ “You and your logic.” Then, staying awake became too hard.


	2. First names

“How soon can she be moved?” asked Rachel. Three gunmen making an unexpected grab for their witness was disconcerting. That sort of thing was generally either a witness being dumb or, worse, a leak.

“No earlier than tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow then,” she told the doctor. Turning,“Tim, Nelson, you’ll stay here tonight. There will be two uniforms at the end of the hall.”

“Yes, boss.”

It was late, so he took the first shift while Rachel grabbed a nap. He’d learned to work well under sleep deprivation. With the local police standing post down the hall, he settled himself into the chair in the in the room. She was sleeping, currently without the aid of anesthesia.

Dr. Evangeline Carlan was not your average witness. She’d been on the run for a week since contacting the state prosecutor and the Marshal Service with evidence against Bobbie King. King was the managing director of a large pharmaceutical company where Dr. Carlan worked as a research chemist. He tried to engage her in a scheme to illegally manufacture drugs using the company as cover. To make matters more complicated, King had been colluding with the mob to handle distribution. After recording enough to send Bobbie King to prison for decades, she contacted the DA and the Marshals and fled from D.C. to Winchester, a little town outside Lexington. She’d been smart and planned well, even if her version of laying low had been unconventional. He wondered why she hadn’t just gone straight to the Marshals in Washington, why Kentucky.

He alternately watched her and the hall outside of her room for some minutes. Eventually he lost interest in the hall, and his attention centered on her. He’d been right; she was lucky that the bullet hadn’t hit a lung. As it was, she’d need some practice using that arm again. The little finger of the hand belonging to her injured shoulder twitched. Her brow creased upwards a fraction. A moment later her arm shifted slightly up. Maybe a bad dream. Trying to twist away from something. Or just dreaming.

He reached out and put a quick, gentle pressure on her hand. He withdrew as she startled awake, head turning while her eyes slowly explored the room, finding him, and running over the room again, before settling back on him. The painkillers made her eyes take too long to completely focus.

The corner of her lips quirked up slightly, “Heya.”

“Hey.” It briefly crossed his mind that the dazed, lopsided expression comfortably plastered across her face was rather charming. “Thought you might need waking up.”

Her eyes slid away from him, as did the smile on her face, as her eyes wandered, still groggy. She looked back to him, the smile returning, albeit a bit weak around the edges. “Helluv’an evening, huh?”

He smirked, “It’s always interesting the witness is buck naked with bullet holes.”

“I was _not_ buck naked.” _Oh how she blushes._

“Excuse me. Clad in a glitter-festooned scrap of cloth.”

“You always this much of a jackass, Deputy?” Her grin belied the bite.

“Always, ask anyone.”

She chuckled, then drew on a more serious expression. “Did they grab my things back there? I had this lighter, and I was hoping it wasn’t lost…” Her voice went up hopefully in a half question.

“I’m sure someone has taken care of it. I’ll let you know.”

“What’s gonna happen?”

“When you’re discharged, we’ll take you to our offices, we’ll read you a bunch of rules, you’ll sign a lot of papers, we’ll get your statement, and then we’ll take you somewhere safe.”

She squinted a little. “Who were the men who got there before you?”

“We’re looking into that.”

“Sounds like you don’t know too much about it.”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t suppose you know how they knew where to find me?”

He cocked his head at her. “Funny, I was going to ask you that.”

Her expression took on a slight stony flavor. “The only form of communication I had was that email. It was on a public computer. There were no cameras, and the only thing behind me was a wall, no windows and nobody. I was careful.” _Thorough girl._ “I don’t think they were from Washington D.C. They sounded like they were from around here.”

“Did you take your own car here?”

“No, I bought an old Honda for cash. It’s in the parking lot at Steely’s. I didn’t see anyone following me when I bought it.”

“Dealers notice when you have that much cash. And the bank notices if you withdraw that much.”

“I bought it off a guy who had it for sale in his driveway, and I withdrew less than ten grand.”

“What if there was something in your clothes? Did you keep your cell phone? Use any credit cards?”

“I thought cops were the only ones who tracked credit cards and phones.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

She pursed her lips. “I ditched my phone and got a pay as you go phone. I bought it in cash, and I used cash for everything else. There wouldn’t have been anything in my clothes. Every time I was at work, I made sure to stand right next to the NMR.” When his eyebrows rose in question she continued, “It’s a big magnet. It would have destroyed any electronics within about ten feet of it.” He colored himself impressed.

“Who’d you buy the car from?”

“I don’t remember his name, but I can give you the address.”

“It’s fine, we can just look him up.” He looked sideways at her. “As long as the original plates are on the car.”

“They are,” she smirked. Then she jerked and half sat up as it dawned on her. “My car has gps. They could have used that to track me to the guy I bought the car from and then found out the plates. And then they could find the car that way.”

“Relax, we’ll find him.”

She lay back down, but his assurance didn’t calm her. She became fascinated by the ceiling above her. “If that’s how they found me, then they already found him.”

He leaned forward. “Hey.” Her gaze didn’t leave the ceiling; her eyes had gone hollow in guilt. “Hey.” She reluctantly dragged her attention back to him. “They probably posed as police to get the information. Hallmark of a good criminal organization is committing as little crime as possible. Harder to attract the attention of the law that way.” She returned to staring at the ceiling, but his words seemed to mollify her somewhat.

They sat in silence. He figured he should distract her from thoughts of the plight of her car’s former owner. “Why’d you come to Kentucky?”

“’Cause it’s not someplace I’d go.”

He smirked and leaned back, spreading his arms. “And what do you have against the great state of Kentucky?” He was gratified when she dropped her eyes back to him with a laugh.

With a level, unblinking stare she replied, “Absolutely nothing at the moment.” Something tugged in his gut. _It’s the drugs._ Then, she was smiling and peering ruefully down at her shoulder. “Well, maybe a couple things.” She lifted her forearm, then rotated it experimentally and winced at the sensation.

“Maybe you should get some rest now, Ma’am.”

“Ma’am? Nope, you saved my life. You get a first name. Evangeline, or Eve.”

He mulled it over. “Eve.”

That elicited another of her charming half-smiles. “Besides, ‘Ma’am’ makes me feel so old.”

“You’re 29.”

She rolled her eyes theatrically. “I know, almost over the hill.”

“I’m 31. What does that make me?”

“More geriatric than I am,” she quipped. Then, “You guys have a file on me or something?”

“That was a dumb question for someone so smart.”

“Don’t know whether or not to say ‘thanks’ or ‘ouch’.” She yawned. “You know, I feel absolutely awful, but I’ve no idea what your name is, and I’m probably a douche for not asking sooner, Deputy…”

“Gutterson.”

“What are you, Madonna?”

He gave a quiet snort. “Tim Gutterson.”

“Nice to meet you.”


	3. Ice cream

Deputy Snarky had been right: there were a lot of rules and a lot of paperwork. The DA hadn’t even gotten her statement. That would wait until tomorrow on account of her fragile health. At least gunshot wounds were good for something. And the day was made longer by the painkillers wearing off. Just as well, she’d been raised to be vigilant, and however lovely codeine was for pain, it was not good for that. And no phone calls to people she knew. That was damn inconvenient, but not unexpected. It wouldn’t be permanent though, only until after the trial.

She was currently horizontal in a back seat of Deputy Snarky’s car on the way to her new lodgings. He driving next to Deputy Nelson. The Chief Deputy had decided that, in light of the attempt on her life, until they figured out how she’d been found, she was going to have two deputies with her at all times. _Deputy Dreamy_. She fully realized the little crush she’d developed was a result of a high adrenaline situation where he’d saved her life. Those sorts of things wore off quickly. His being easy on the eyes wasn’t helping however. And he also had this adorable little perma-crease between his brows that made her want to yank his chain and chase it away with a laugh. But for better or worse, his position as a Marshal made whatever little fantasies she entertained – and she did allow herself some entertainment – impossible. She also owed him enough that she wouldn’t make the situation uncomfortable by trying either.

The car pulled to a stop, and they idled for a moment. She leaned her head up to see him peering around.

“Alright we’re good.” He turned the engine off and stepped out of the car. Eve hauled herself upright – she was really starting to resent the sling she wore – and opened the car door.

“Thank goodness. It’s embarrassing how excited I am to have a shower.” She’d gotten a bit of a sponge bath at the hospital, but the caked tart make-up hadn’t fully come off. It was like making the walk of shame after a two day bender at a clown convention. Clowns with a glitter fetish.

The house was a small two bedroom, sparsely but comfortably furnished. Unfortunately there was no food in it yet. Holding open the empty fridge, she called out, “Hey, not to be a pain, but is there any chance we could get some food? Pretty sure I could down a whole pizza right now. A gallon of ice cream…some Butterfingers…a handle of vodka…some orange juice…” She trailed off too quietly for her bodyguards to hear the more whimsical culinary wishes.

It was Deputy Brooks who answered. “Yeah.” She looked at her partner, “Tim, you want to go get some stuff, and I’ll stay here with her?”

“Sounds good.”

That shower felt every bit as good as she’d anticipated. She hoped the Marshals would forgive her for the water bill. Something about lying at the bottom of the tub under a scalding hot shower, most calming thing on the planet. She removed the sling and did some experimental movements with her arm. It ached and was stiff as hell, and it pulled too much if she lifted it too far, but it was good enough to shower with. She didn’t feel in danger, but she needed a moment to herself, something she hadn’t gotten at all in about 36 hours. Dancing naked in front of strangers for the better part of an afternoon and evening, under guard at a hospital, and being bombarded with paperwork and whatnot was exhausting. After about an hour she thanked the gods of deep-welled water heaters and turned off the water. By the time she’d toweled off and dressed, Deputy Gutterson was back with their food.

She was pleasantly surprised to find pizza and ice cream waiting for her. And on top of the pizza box was a lighter, a bronze zippo with her name on the bottom and a phoenix engraved on the side, a little too shiny on the ridges from constant fiddling. She gave the igniter an experimental flick, and smiled at the flame.

o.O.o

When he arrived with food, Nelson had grabbed two pieces of pizza on a paper plate and headed outside for his guard shift. He’d raised an eyebrow on the way out when he saw Tim putting the ice cream in the freezer.

“Want my pepperoni?” He turned around to see Eve with a mouthful of pizza and a few slices of pepperoni sitting on her plate.

“You don’t eat it?”

She looked a little sheepish as she replied, “I don't eat red meat.”

“You’re in Kentucky.” He took the proffered slices from her plate.

“Alright, look,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m not a jackass about it, so you’re not allowed to be a jackass about it either. You don’t judge and I don’t judge.”

“Seems you’ve had this conversation before.”

“Once or twice.”

After they finished the pizza, she collected their plates and threw them away. She called from the kitchen, “Want some ice cream?”

“Sure.” He belatedly thought to offer help, what with her shoulder. But when he got to the door of the kitchen he realized she wasn’t wearing the sling and was already in the process of scooping their dessert out anyways, even if the process was a bit awkward and slow. He sat back down at the table.

“How much you want?”

“Just two scoops. I don’t wanna lose my girlish figure.”

He heard a snort from the kitchen, and she emerged shortly after with a couple bowls. She handed him one and sat down across the table from him, putting her feet on the chair next to her. She didn’t eat hers right away, only regarded him for a minute before beginning tentatively, “Deputy?”

“Hm?” He was already sure he didn’t like where this was going. This was how most women started out “a talk”.

She looked at him levelly. “I owe you. Quite a bit. Thank you. I didn’t say that last night.”

Given the opening, it wasn’t his first guess about where she’d been going with the conversation. “I wouldn’t say you owe me. It’s kind of my job.”

Eve fixed him with a look. “He told me I’d only be alive long enough for them to kill me in front of a camera. Proof for whoever was paying them I guess.” She swallowed, remembering. “They weren’t going to be nice about it either.” She looked back up. “So yes, I owe you.”

“You don’t seem concerned about the idea that I could have missed. Most people would have been concerned about that.” And by concerned, he meant pissed.

“Considering the alternative…” She took a bite of her ice cream, then gesticulated with her spoon. “No, but seriously,” she continued with her mouth half full before swallowing, then met his eye, evaluating, “You didn’t flinch or tense up. You _knew_ you weren’t going to miss, not just _thought_ so. And since I’m sitting here, I’ve no reason to distrust that. And even if you hadn’t taken the shot, I’m certain I wouldn’t have made it out otherwise.” She twirled her spoon in a small circle, taking her feet off the chair and turning to face him fully. “Where’d you serve?”

“One tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.” He didn’t like having the “Oh, so you were in the military” conversation. It generally gave people some annoying preconceived impression of him. With women, they usually saw the white knight in shining armor, or it was the tragically messed up soldier who needed to be saved, a.k.a. fixed. Both were equally insufferable. Next they usually asked if he’d killed someone and what it was like. “How’d you guess?”

“I’ve never met anyone in law enforcement that comfortable with a gun.” _Fair._

“You should meet this guy I work with. He shoots people left and right.”

“That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it. Don’t be a prick.” Her insults were almost endearments, the way they slid easily off her tongue and always came packaged up with, what he thought was, a rather winning smile. In this case, it was one of those smiles mostly consisting of twinkling eyes rather than a curving of lips. “As I was saying…Cops aren’t like that with guns.”

“Well, I’m not a cop.”

“What did I just say about being a dick?”

“You said I was being a prick. Didn’t say I couldn’t be a dick.” That earned him a guffaw. Needling her was turning out to be almost as entertaining as needling his coworkers. Rachel was a bit too serious for him to really have fun with it unless she was in the right mood; she mostly just enjoyed his antics. Raylan could always be counted on for some good banter, and was endlessly amusing to fuck with. Eve seemed to find it entertaining herself, but he couldn’t bust out the full crudeness around her. He had to maintain a scrap of professionalism and all that. That had been one of the hardest things about leaving the army: watching his mouth. In the army no one gave a damn about unimportant things like proper and professional language, and minding his manners grated.

She laughed. He swept his hand out as a gesture to continue. “You also walk like army, and I say army ‘cause you’re not arrogant enough to be a marine. My big brother went into the marines. When I saw him for the first time after he finished basic, he walked differently,” she gestured at him, "kinda like you do.” She dropped her eyes again. “That and you would slow down a little and look around a lot whenever we went under an overpass.” She wasn’t wrong.

“I was a sniper. Rangers.” She looked up at him. He wasn’t sure why he was continuing the conversation.

She raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Lucky for me. No wonder you’re good.” She shoveled another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “So… what do you do now besides Marshaling?” The banality of her next question surprised him. Almost invariably the next question had always been about his kill count. With men it was about a pissing contest; he wasn’t even ok with it when it was another sniper. It was always laughable coming from a civilian. There was humanity lost in making killing people a contest. With women, it was usually an assessment of sanity. Both were equally disappointed when he didn’t give a real answer.

“Work takes up quite a bit of time.” This was technically true, but she didn’t have to know that the better part of his time spent outside of work was at a range or at home alone. He had a couple Ranger buddies he would see now and then, but most of them didn’t live in Lexington.

She glanced down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. You can tell me if I ask too many questions.” She’d tried for light-hearted, but it came off slightly weak, and he felt guilty. He doubted she was the sort of woman used to being conversation-blocked.

“I really don’t have much of a life outside work. Most of the people I know don’t live in town. I go to the range a lot. I read, watch TV. It’s not exciting.”

She shrugged. “Eh, as long as you’re happy, who cares?” He wondered if that was an assumption on her part, or if she had purposefully not asked _if_ he was happy. She stuck out a hand for his bowl, stacked it on hers, and carried them to the sink in the kitchen. She reappeared in the doorway. “So am I going to be allowed out of here at all?”

“It’s probably a good idea to keep to the house.”

“What about the range? There must be one for the Marshals. Or at least for law enforcement. That seems safe to me. And I could always use the practice.”

He looked at her for a moment before answering. “Seems to me like you don’t really need the practice.” _Two perfect shots to the heart._ He was curious about that. She may not have his skill, few did, but she wasn’t new to shooting.

Her humor left, and nothing replaced it. Not cold, just blank, like blinds pulled closed over a window and he was standing outside. “Perhaps you’re right. Good night, Deputy.” He cursed to himself. _Shouldn’t have pushed_. She went to the living room and turned on the TV. Tim knew better than to follow and waited for her to get tired and go to bed, but after a couple hours he gave up and turned in for the night. He found her asleep on the couch with the TV still on when he went to take over the guard shift from Nelson.


	4. Cowboy

_Now there’s a broken stereotype_ , thought Raylan as Tim and Nelson marched in their Eve Carlan. He wondered what kind of crazy the woman had tucked into her bra, then chuckled to himself since it was the first time he was seeing her wearing anything over that area. Despite the sling cradling her right arm, she carried herself with as she strode across the office. Something about the confident, upright posture with which she walked rubbed him the wrong way. And when they’d found her two days ago, two of the men trying to kill her were already dead. She wasn’t scared enough; it piqued his suspicious side.

Nelson was sneaking glances at her ass. Raylan didn’t blame him. The woman was definitely worth the time of day, but he was all about tall and blond. This one was petite with dark chocolate-mahogany hair piled in an artfully careless way atop her head.

After depositing their witness in the conference room, Nelson headed to his desk, and Tim came into the kitchen to grab some coffee.

“How’s babysitting?” Even if the witness was attractive, the protection gigs were boring. Not a lot of them volunteered for those jobs.

“Uneventful.” He poured himself a cup and took a sip.

“Nelson seems to be enjoying himself.”

Tim leaned against the counter and swirled his coffee, bored. “Is ‘e now.”

“Mmmm, seemed absolutely fascinated by her ass.” Then with a grimace of mock severity, “Very unprofessional if I do say.”

Tim threw a glance at Nelson and rolled his eyes back towards Raylan. “And when has that ever stopped you? That’s like the pile of steaming donkey shit telling the deer turd it smells.”

“Not your type huh?”

“Witnesses are kind of like fourteen year old jailbait around here.” _Well now. That wasn’t a ‘no’._

“Aw, now pretty little thing like that? Smart with a bit of a wild side?”

“Sounds like you wanna take a swing.”

“Wouldn’t want to take her away from Nelson.”

“You’re not her type anyways.”

“How do you figure?”

“She’s not a dipshit.” And higher praise for a woman Raylan had never heard from Tim Gutterson’s mouth. _Well now, indeed._

 

o.O.o

Raylan looked up from his computer to the conference room to see Rachel knocking on the door frame.

He strode to the door, “Hey, what’s up.”

“Come on in.” He followed her in and took a seat next to their witness, slowly spinning to look at her.

“Deputy Givens, Miss Carlan.” She offered him the perfunctory polite smile and a firm handshake, albeit with her left hand.

“Dr. Carlan,” Rachel corrected.

“Eve is fine.”

“Right, our sharpshooting stripper has a PhD.” He smiled winningly and tipped his hat. The polite but indifferent smile she’d thrown his way as he’d walked in turned brittle. _At least one of those struck a nerve._

“Oh, did you want a dance?”

“You offering?”

“You’re not my type, cowboy.” She paused, looking him up and down and shook her head. “Too tall.”

“Well, if that’s the worst thing about me…”

“Oh, I didn’t say that was the worst thing, sweetheart.” There was a snort from Tim’s direction.

“Raylan -” He would have bet on Rachel being the one to step in, not Tim.

Eve turned to Tim. “It’s fine.” Then at Raylan, “I didn’t think anyone would look for me there.” _So it was the sharpshooting part._

“Worked out well.” She only shrugged in response.

Now it was Rachel who cut in. “The grand jury is convening on Thursday. You and Tim will be escorting Eve to Washington. You leave on Wednesday.”

“What if I have pressing business here?”

“You don’t. It will be handled.” She said as if he didn’t have a CI to handle and a criminal kingpin of his own to take down. Rachel could be so unreasonable. To be fair, the CI was compromised.

“What about Nelson?” he wheedled, “Wasn’t he with Tim on this?”

“Raylan.”

“Fine.” He knew a losing battle when he saw one.

“That’s all then.”


	5. Butter

“Hey Nelson, go on ahead. I have a stop to make first.”

Once again Eve was shuffled into a car and whisked off. She was grateful; they had a job to do, but confinement chaffed. She’d spoken four words to the Deputy since the night before, “Good morning” and “Thanks” when he’d opened a door for her and “OK” when he’d told her Rachel would be in to take her statement. Normally she’d have felt bad for being so taciturn, but she was tired and couldn’t muster the motivation to bother. Mercifully, he’d taken the hint and didn’t say much beyond “I made some coffee.” She’d politely declined and made herself tea.

The car stopped. It wasn’t the house. She looked around, but he cut off any inquiries as to their location, “Come on.” She stepped out of the car as bid. Instead of leading her into one of the buildings he came around to stand in front of her. “Who taught you to shoot?”

She drew her lips inward and focused on a patch of air somewhere between her face and a wall. “Mom thought I should be able to take care of myself.”

“Sounds like a woman I wouldn’t want to cross.”

“She’s sweet actually.” She smiled in spite of herself.

“Bet all the boys knockin’ on your door felt the same way.” He walked around to the trunk and grabbed two gun cases and a couple boxes of ammunition from the back. She laughed. Mom had always stayed out of that part of her life mostly. She would ask after it or offer advice, but her children made their own decisions. Mistakes were a hazard of that, but picking yourself up was always a good lesson.

“What are we doing?”

“What’s it look like? We’re at a shooting range.” He gestured towards one of the buildings. And before she could ask what changed his mind, he turned and walked inside. She hurried after him.

After getting a few targets and two pairs of headphones, he led her to a lane. “Did she teach you to shoot with both hands?”

“Yeah, but I’m better as a lefty anyways.”

“You’re right handed.”

“And left-eyed.”

“Well let’s see what you got.” And he handed her the smaller caliber .38.

She hefted the piece, a Glock, and took aim. Shooting one-handed was more difficult, but she focused, took a long breath out, aimed, and took her shot. Just paper, not real. She repeated the process four more times before her hand started to waver.

Deputy Gutterson reeled in the target. There was a smattering of holes around the torso, but not near the center, and only three bullets had hit the target. “Not bad, considering. Go for the head this time. Don’t anticipate the trigger. You jerk left and down when you do that. And turn more to the side. With a one handed shot, you’ll be steadier.” He made her dry fire a few times so she’d stop anticipating the gun firing.

And so it went, five shots, he’d assess her target, and then tell her where to shoot and make an adjustment. With each cycle, the repetitive motion and crack of a bullet, the target became more of a piece of paper, her shooting a skill to hone, and she saw less of a real body. The routine eventually became calming. Breathe in, hold, breathe out and shoot. When her cluster improved to include all of the bullets shot, and they all fell within the area of a human head, the Deputy pulled the target down for the last time and put away the Glock.

As he was stowing the pistols in the back of the SUV, Eve noted the long rifle case on the side. “What’s that?”

“Now that’s a Remington 700PSS.” He opened the case for her to see.

“And what a beauty it is.”

“And this beauty is mine.” He smiled with pride and gave the weapon a dramatically possessive stroke before closing the case.

She held up her hands in mock defeat. “Don’t worry, I won’t steal your girlfriend. Just admiring.”

They each strode to the front of the car and took their respective seats. “Hey, thanks for that, Deputy.”

“We can come back whenever you feel like it. Just don’t run us out of bullets. There are bad guys to shoot.”

o.O.o

She’d clammed up last night when he mentioned the men she’d shot. It was eating at her, and boy, did he know that feeling. Even when you had to, it was never easy. One thing he’d learned as a sniper having to watch a target for days before getting a kill order was that they were all someone to somebody. Even the men he regretted killing the least were good to someone. It wasn’t always the target you regretted, it was the people you’d stolen from, the children who were now fatherless, the friends now friendless. It wasn’t his job to be counselor or friend, and his job certainly did not encourage it. But he’d been in her shoes and damned if he wasn’t going to do what he could for her. To his relief it had seemed to work. She was conversational on the ride home. She’d talked about her family. He didn’t talk about his. Hers seemed idyllic. There was a time he’d have killed for that. It was part of why the Rangers had worked so well for him; they were the family he’d never had.

And now she’d talked him into stopping by a grocery store so she could make something for dinner.

“How about a roast? I’m kind of shit at grilling, but I can make roast.” They were walking up and down isles as she mulled over the night’s menu.

“Doesn’t that kind of cooking take two hands? You’re kinda at one and a quarter as far as functionality goes. Besides, what are you going to eat?”

“I’m thinking. Christ.” Apparently the two hands for cooking thing didn’t concern her. He wondered how much of the cooking he’d be drafted into later.

It turned out, as he sat on the counter in the kitchen watching her do all the cooking, that the answer to that was none.

“And here I was told strong, independent women didn’t want to be in the kitchen.”

“Were you just nice to me, Deputy?” She looked up from the onions, feigning shock.

“Saving your life counts for nothing?” He pretended hurt.

“Damn you did, didn’t you.”

“Your shoulder isn’t bothering you?” Not that cooking was horribly strenuous, but she was making more use of her arm than he thought was comfortable.

“Painkillers are a beautiful thing. And the doctor knew what he was doing apparently.” She cavalierly dumped half a stick of butter into the roasting pan.

“Good God woman, how much butter did you just put on that?”

“Don’t be a little bitch. It’s dairy, which is calcium and complete protein. It’s good for you.”

“How are you not fat? Hell, by the time you testify I’m going to be fat.”

Eve put the roast in the oven and turned to him. “Deputy,” and her eyes raked down him and took their time tracing their way back up. “I doubt that’s ever been an issue for you.”

If Tim had been the blushing type, he’d have been the color of tomato paste. He did not know how to react to that. Even if she was just teasing he was not used to flirting. It had been quite a while since he’d sought anything or let himself be sought after. He tried to come up with a humorous deflection, but his brain was a step behind. She was now standing in front of him with a beer. “You’re gonna need this.” _Oh God, she wasn’t._ But she just looked him in the eye and deadpanned, “Otherwise this shit’s gonna give you gas,” and jerked her thumb at the oven. He coughed out the breath he’d been holding as a laugh and tried not to think about whether or not he was disappointed.


	6. Court

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers. I posted the first five chapters all in one go, and I am sorry to say that my proofreading was not as thorough as it should have been. So oops and sorry! I'll try to be better in the future. I had gone back and forth in chapters 2 and 3 between having Rachel or Nelson partnered with Tim. I had settled on Nelson and put it in the point of the series where Rachel is interim boss, but forgot to change it in a couple places. I apologize for that confusion! Have fun!

Raylan beat them to the airport. He was grinning and giddy as a school girl invited to her first dance. “We get the plane.” He addressed Tim as they followed Eve onto the plane. “I guess babysitting has its perks, huh?”

“Oh, it’s not so bad.” And it wasn’t. Eve was good company. She wasn’t the skittering scared witness who lost themselves in television and internet cat videos, trying to hide from how crappy their life had become, or the shitwad who’d made a deal to avoid prison time and found entertainment in hassling their protection detail. Eve was relaxing, easy to talk to. She asked questions, but didn’t pry. She was educated but humble, still excited by the knowledge the world had to offer, and aware that a lot of it didn’t come from a book. He liked listening to her talk, but he also liked that she listened to him, gave a shit about what someone else had to say.

“Really now?” Raylan’s grin took on a cheshire quality Tim didn’t like _._

“Get on the plane before you wet your panties,” he groused.

“Oh, they’re wet.”

As much as he’d made fun of Raylan, getting to use the plane was infinitely more comfortable than flying commercially or driving to DC. They still hadn’t nailed down how those men had found Eve, and Rachel felt caution was the better path. Art agreed and they got the plane. They made it to D.C. in style and in good time. The drive to the hotel was uneventful, and Tim and Raylan allowed themselves a moment to relax. The hotel room had two beds and a big plush chair. Eve threw her stuff onto the bed by the balcony, and Tim immediately picked it up and dropped it on the bed farther from the window.

“Killjoy prick.”

“Don’t get ornery with me woman.”

“The view sucks anyway.” He looked out the window. It was alright. It looked onto the river, hard to shoot across.

“Well how about you run out and get us some food?” Raylan interjected looking at Tim.

“Why am I the errand boy?”

“My finger’s on my nose.” It was. “And maybe you can sightsee while you’re at it.” He knew what Raylan was trying to do. A part of him appreciated it, and a part of him wanted to tell Raylan to fuck off, but either way, he didn’t want to visit the dead. He’d already spent too much time at Arlington, and it didn’t bring peace, just memories of what ifs and should haves.

“Nah, I’m too hungry for that. What do you guys want?”

“Surprise me,” said Eve.

“You shouldn’t say that.” Raylan cautioned. “I said that once, and he put ketchup in my milkshake.”

“He puked. It was hilarious.” It was a fond memory.

“You didn’t think it was so funny after we had to sit in that hot car for three more hours.”

“Nah, it was worth it,” he smirked.

“Nevermind, I want TacoBell.” Eve said.

“You asshole.” Tim complained, turning to Raylan, “I was going to bring her chicken.” He ducked around the door and out of the room as a pillow flew at his head.

o.O.o

Eve unpacked her suit and set to ironing it while Raylan peered out the window through the edge of the curtains. “You’ve made friends with Tim,” he remarked casually. Tim was not one for making friends. It was generally a tie between Tim and Raylan when it came to hating humanity, but the hatred had always made Tim more antisocial. The easy banter between the him and Eve was definitely social. He’d never seen Tim flirt, but this had to be darn close. The woman had already proved she was slippery and cunning. He wasn’t sure what Eve would gain from manipulating Tim into her corner, and hell, maybe she wasn’t and didn’t want anything from him, but Raylan didn’t like the idea of Tim being taken in by some sneaky devil woman.

“Well, it’s better we get along than not, I suppose.”

“Mmm,” was his noncommittal grunt.

She paused in her ironing. “Marshal, I get the feeling you don’t entirely approve of me.”

Raylan sauntered around the room, stopping to make a show of inspecting the mini-bar before selecting a coke. “You seem like a woman who can take care of herself. You did a fine job gathering evidence on Bobbie King. Such a fine job, in fact, that we don’t even need your testimony.” He put on his best innocently confused expression. “You could have turned in the evidence anonymously and never had to deal with any of this.” He took a sip of coke, “Which begs the question of why you’d put yourself through all of this in the first place.”

She was nonchalant when she answered him, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I never liked Bobbie, and I don’t like the guys he took his little side business to. And I _will_ make damn sure that jackass gets what’s coming to him.”

“You know, it’s interesting, I was reading your file-” She snorted. “Something funny?”

“Well Tim says you’re pretty bad about that kind of thing. I’m flattered.”

He was going to kick Tim when he saw him again. “As I was saying, it seems like before his foray into the drug business you didn’t really have any contact with Bobbie King.”

“Well we all went to the same company Christmas parties.”

“And if he didn’t know you _that well_ , why would he approach you with something as big as that?”

“He needed someone in the R&D lab, so any unusual chemical orders could be explained away as being for a new research project. And he needed the person who ran one of those labs to make the orders, and so no one would question the extra time spent at work. I was newer with the company, and I guess he thought he could hold my job over my head if I refused.” She gestured to herself. “Look at me, young, female. I look easy to push around.”

He held up his coke in a friendly salute. “Well, I wouldn’t accuse you of being that.” He headed for the bathroom, then stopped and turned half around as if a thought had suddenly occurred. “Did you know your daddy used to work for Koenensalz Pharmaceutical, just like you?”

She didn’t blink, and that in itself was telling. “Yeah, he mentioned it when I got the job.”

“Huh.” He shrugged his eyebrows as he took a drink.

o.O.o

Dressing for court was difficult. As a woman there was a fine line between the good-looking professional and trying-to-hard slut. People subconsciously trusted the good-looking, but didn’t take the trying-to-hard seriously. Add having an advanced degree into the equation, and the balance became more tenuous. They expected matronly, nerd, or tragically unable to manage a wardrobe. Too much good-looking made the degree less serious. She settled on a black skirt suit – good looking, but conservative. Hair up and carefully coiffed and heels – but not too high – were to make her older. People trusted older. Light make-up – she even used powder, and she hated the stuff, made her face feel like a cake she couldn’t touch – to seem put together. Satisfied with her appearance she exited the bathroom.

Tim was already awake. He always took the early morning shift. She wondered how he ever got enough sleep. He probably didn’t. He said his early rising was a byproduct of Ranger school, but James had said the same thing about being in the infantry. And she knew her brother well enough to know about the nightmares. Along with the nightmares Eve had learned about the other things too, the newfound hatred of bubble wrap, thunder, and backfiring cars. The bubble wrap part had made her sad, even adults were entertained by it. Someone on her street had even left a bucket of it at their park with a sign labeled “Free Stress Relief” with a bunch of smiley faces to emphasize the point. She was sad he was no longer able to appreciate such a small, silly thing. She’d wanted to wipe it all away, to make it better, to _fix_ it. Eventually, she realized sometimes all she could do was show up with a cigar, a bottle of gin, and a willingness to play video games. People fix themselves for themselves and no one else. You can’t be their tow truck, just their walking stick.

She saw it in the Deputy too. Every time he drank too much coffee with circles under his eyes Eve wanted to pry open that box of hurt and fill it with teddy bears, rainbows, and unicorn farts. But that wasn’t how the world worked, how James worked, how the Deputy worked. So she made herself _there_ , didn’t pry, and sometimes he’d go there, never more than small bits and pieces, sometimes more in action than in word. Mostly it was the funny stories, the easy stories, and every now and then there was a hint of the rest. Not a lot, but it was enough to tweak the curtain back from the window. The only thing she could do was not run from the view.

“You ready to indict some bad guys?”

“Is it too early for breakfast?” She glanced at Deputy Givens, still asleep.

“We’ll get something on the way to the courthouse.”

“You’re that afraid someone’s going to poison the food?” She grumbled and rummaged for a candy bar in her purse, muttering a triumphant ‘hah!’ when her search yielded results.

“That or they’ll try to get through the door.”

“Damn Deputy, you’re making me nervous.”

“You must be comatose when you’re calm. Are you seriously starting the day with a butterfinger?”

“Half a butterfinger,” she corrected. “And you,” She shook the chocolate accusingly in his direction, “won’t feed me.” She downed the rest and shoved a stick of gum in her mouth.

o.O.o

Raylan wasn’t actually asleep, and he took a perversely immature pleasure in delaying breakfast, but eventually his own stomach got the better of him. He roused himself and readied to ferry their witness to court. He and Tim each donned a bullet proof vest and helped Eve into the smaller one brought along for her. She delayed the process by griping about the weight on her injured shoulder, and he fetched a spare hand towel to pad it. Once out of the hotel, their journey to the courthouse went smoothly. Breakfast was obtained, much to the satisfaction of their “starving” witness.

Upon arrival at the courthouse, they parked in the underground garage to avoid the press and anyone else they didn’t want to run into. The prosecutor met them at the lower level doors and led them to his office to wait until the proceedings began. The man briefly debated keeping Eve in the vest during her testimony, a not-so-subtle statement to the grand jury about the dangerous criminal nature of the defendants, but in the end he decided it made her look too small, and he needed a witness with an air of authority. When the time came, they ushered her from the office and into the small courtroom. Luckily, the judge had declared the proceedings not open to the public, so keeping an eye on the room was easier. Questions were asked by both sides and answered in the same meticulous fashion. Their witness was excused, and they were free to leave.

“Damn, all that taxpayer money for a plane, just so I could talk for fifteen minutes?”

“And the United States government is grateful for it,” was Tim’s reply.

“Seriously, do you know how much jet fuel costs?”

“A lot,” said Raylan. He stopped in front of her and both Marshals unsnapped their holsters. He waited for Tim to walk the rest of the way down the hall to the door and into the parking garage to check for threats. The door was made up of two heavy glass panes, and although nothing was visible through it, Tim took out his weapon, holding it low, before slowly pushing open the door. It was too late when, as the door opened, Raylan saw the glass reflect the image of a man waiting just to the side of the door. And there was already a gun pressed against Tim’s forehead as Raylan yelled Tim’s name in warning.


	7. Pilfering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, this was so much fun to write! I hope y'all enjoy it :-)

Tim froze as the image of the gun barrel between his eyes registered. _Shit_. A hand came down and wrapped firmly around his wrist and the bottom of his hand. “Now before you start wondering if you’re faster than me, I suggest you just hand me that gun in your hand because I promise you, you aren’t.”

He had no choice but to relinquish his weapon. Another set of hands from behind him on the other side of the door relieved him of the one at the small of his back. Joke was on them, he had another in an ankle holster. Joke was on him because he couldn’t reach for it. There was a sickening lance of fear as his pistol left his hand. At least in Afghanistan he had a weapon. With that and bullets, he could shoot back. Now he didn’t even have that. Quick on the heels of the initial burst of fear was acceptance. You make the most of what you have, and that’s really all you can do. You don’t do that, and you _will_ die; you do that and there’s a chance. He forced his breathing to remain normal and look at the man holding the gun to his head. Middle build, ACU boots, and a high and tight. _God shit-fucking Christ._ It was damn disconcerting to have a military man, a man who in other circumstances should have his back come hell (and hell so often came) or high sand, holding a gun in his face. It pissed him off. There was an uncomfortable moment when the memory of a heroin addict committing suicide by cop surfaced. He pushed it down and came back to the moment. Raylan was calling down the hallway.

“Now before you do something really stupid, I have to inform you that that man is a Deputy U.S. Marshal. It’s not going to go well for you if something happens to him.”

The guy didn’t seem bothered by Raylan’s warning. “Oh, don’t worry, we know exactly who he, and you, are. The good part here is that he doesn’t need to get hurt. Neither do you. I’m just going to ask you to hand over our girl there.”

“Ours. And not gonna happen.” Tim’s assertion was met with a sneering snicker. What he would do to turn that guy’s nose to gravel.

“Oh, come on now, Deputy.” Her voice was steady, but a shade too high. _God. Dammit. Raylan, shut that woman up._ He turned his head slowly, so as not to startle the man with the gun, to peer down the hall at Raylan and Eve. He could see her feet. Raylan was using an arm to keep her corralled behind him, and her hands clutched at either side of his jacket. “How exactly to you propose we do that Mr…?”

“Smith,” he replied, “It’s nice to see the lady is so open-minded.”

“Well I ain’t so obliging as she is,” Tim snarled. There was no world in which this ended with them letting anyone take her. He yelled down the hallway, “Raylan, tell our witness not to be a dipshit!” He refocused on his captor. _You can try jackass._

“He doesn’t have much say in the matter, Deputy.” His head snapped back at her words, and a brick dropped into his gut and fell straight to the bottom. Her voice had a determined resolution, and Eve had pulled Raylan’s back-up piece from his waistband and was pointing it into his side. “I’m sorry, Raylan, but I need you to put yours on the ground.” The look on Raylan’s face would have been priceless if the shitshow unfolding in front of his eyes hadn’t been happening. He acquiesced, and she nudged the gun back towards her once it was on the floor, then bent to pick it up and put it in her coat pocket.

“Eve, you stupid bitch, you turn around and go back in the building!” Oh he was furious, furious at her, furious at himself, furious at Raylan. She wouldn’t have shot him, and he should have knocked her down and taken his gun back. This was not going to end well. She was going to get herself killed, and he was quickly running out of ideas of how to stop it.

“Shut up, Deputy. I’m having a conversation with the nice man who’s got a gun to your head.” She circled carefully out from behind Raylan, the gun trained on his chest. After coming half way down the hall between the door and Raylan, she leaned against the wall and let the gun rest at her side. The hand holding the gun was too white. She flexed her hand around the grip a few times, but the white-knuckled grip stayed. She was frightened.

“Eve!” _Stupid fucking God-damned shit for brains-_

She ignored him and addressed Mr. Smith. “I have a proposal for you, Mr. Smith. You need me alive. Otherwise I can’t recant my testimony, and I can’t show the DA how cleverly I fabricated all that evidence against your boss. We can agree on that, right?”

“Sounds like you’re headed in the right direction, Miss Carlan.” _The right direction would be running away from your ass._

“Well then,” she took a steadying breath, “how about this, to make everyone happy.” She noticed Raylan had taken a step forward while her attention was on Mr. Smith. “Raylan, so help me, I will shoot you in the foot if you take another step.” As if reading his thoughts, she cocked the hammer, “And if you don’t believe that, then believe that I’m jumpy enough that any sudden movement from you might cause my finger to spasm on this trigger.” She raised the gun slightly in his direction to make the point before turning back to the door. Raylan stayed still. “As I was saying, Mr. Smith… You and the Deputy are going to stand in that doorway. You’ll keep your gun aimed at him, and I’m going to come down the hall with this gun, and it’s going to be aimed at you. If it makes you feel better, your friend on the other side of the door can come out and aim his gun at me as well. Plenty of incentive for everyone to behave. When both deputies are around the corner and back in the courthouse where you can’t shoot them, I’ll lower my gun, and we can go wherever you like.” She waved the gun behind her. Raylan stayed at the corner, not behind it.

“I think that’s a solid plan. Mr. Jones and I are going to come in the door now. I’d keep your hands where everyone can see them, Marshal.”

Eve heaved an unsteady breath and moved off the wall and held her pilfered weapon towards the door, leveled at Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones. Tim started walking towards her. Half-formulated plans to thwart her current path of action flitted through his head, each dismissed as impossible before they could solidify.

“Deputy,” she said softly when they met in the hall, low enough that the men at the door couldn’t hear, “If you try something heroic, I’ll shoot you.”

“Eve-”

“Look at me and tell me I’m lying.” It was her cocked pistol in his face now. She met his eyes across the barrel and lowered it to point at the outside of his thigh. _Shit._ He was 78% sure she wasn’t lying.

“You know what’s going to happen,” he talked fast, angry and pleading.

“Shut up, Tim.” But her voice was gentle, not hard. His name, not his job title. She was giving up, and her acceptance of that fate pissed him off and scared him all at once.

“This is not the way.” He didn’t have a damn clue what the way was.

“It’s the only way I keep you safe.” _Fuck. You dipshit…bitch…_ his mind stuttered around her gallant stupidity. She was saving him. That’s right, she thought she owed him, and now because of some misplaced, inane sense of honor - but he knew it wasn’t just honor or owing him - she was going to die. For him. And he was helpless. And terrified. He’d already lived this in a box of sand far away, and these things weren’t supposed to happen here too. But it wasn’t just bad memories and ghosts and nightmares with him now. It was real again. He had no doubt that once she was in this man’s hands, she would die, and it would not be well. And he was furious that it was going to be for him. When they had passed each other, he stayed facing her, walking backwards.

She’d been such a well-behaved witness, of course she’d fuck up now. She continued down the hall, towards the door and the men who meant her harm, and he kept walking towards the other end, away from where he should be walking and what he ought to be doing. Not that he knew what that was. He stopped when he reached the corner next to Raylan, unable to bring himself to go around it to safety. There was nothing he could do, but he wasn’t a coward. Twenty feet from the door she set down the gun she’d stolen from Raylan and stood, the hand not in a sling held up. The two men who would take her away stood with their weapons steady. When she was fifteen feet away, midstride, he heard the shot.

The first man staggered with a hole in his stomach. Whether it was a spasm or an attempt, his finger pulled the trigger, but it went wide, high on the wall. A second hole bloomed in his chest. She still had a gun. Tim scrambled for the weapon still strapped to his ankle. Eve turned too slowly to “Mr. Jones,” and his bullet knocked into her chest. _Vest, she has a vest._ She stumbled backwards, almost fell. He wished she’d fallen. She was swaying, trying to stay on her feet, and for a few seconds, his aim was obstructed. It didn’t matter in the end because she dropped him too. Two bullets in the chest, and one more as she let herself fall. She sat down hard and collapsed back against the wall. Raylan ran past Tim to the bodies clogging the doorway; they were dead but there were things you didn’t take for granted.

Tim knelt next to Eve. Her face was contorted in pain. She probably had some broken ribs, only bruised if she was really lucky. He wanted to touch her, to say something, but profane insults were the only thing that would come spilling out of his mouth, and he wouldn’t mean a word. He had no idea how to say what he meant, so he kept his mouth shut, and with a hand gripping each arm, gently hauled her to her feet. Something in him winced at the gasp of pain that escaped her mouth at the motion. The fingers of her good hand dug into his forearm as she caught her balance and tried to will her pain into submission.

“You’re ok,” she said. Her pupils were too small, and her hand wouldn’t stay still, and he knew she wasn’t even aware of it.

“No shit, dummy.” He wasn’t.

“I didn’t want you to have to shoot them.” She looked down at the bodies Raylan had already abandoned. It took him a moment for the implications of her statement to sink in. Not “I didn’t want you to shoot them,” not “I didn’t want to see you kill _even more people_ ,” just “I didn’t want you to have to.” He looked down at Mr. Smith and saw the heroin addict with the aviators again, and damned if that wasn’t the sweetest, most fucked up thing anyone had ever said to him. But he didn’t know how to tell her that either, so he pulled her as quickly as he could towards the SUV. Raylan was already at the wheel. She crawled into the backseat and he in after her, and when she sat upright, he loosened her seatbelt and pulled her down onto his lap on her back and held her there with an arm across her shoulders as Raylan made record time to a hospital.


	8. that kind of day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bitch to write. If I didn't quite nail it, advice is welcome.

Eve was having a hard time focusing. She felt like a goldfish with two brain cells, one to breathe and one to think. The Deputy was fine. Raylan was fine. Something hurt, but she could walk, so it couldn’t be that bad. There was no wet, no blood. Good, that sucked enough last time. There was a car door; she went through it. Seatbelts, you needed those in cars. Then she was horizontal and pinned down by something warm. Oh right, witnesses weren’t supposed to be seen through windows. The crease between his brows was more pronounced. _I’m sorry._ He’s ok. He wasn’t saying much. She was used to sardonic and snarky and the few times he offered her only silence, she didn’t know how to take it. He was probably pissed. That was fine by her. He’s ok. This was her fault.

She closed her eyes and saw the pistol on his forehead. She opened them and looked up. It wasn’t there. She was scared for the past and relieved for the present and guilty and thankful, and it was too much to hold all at once. She sucked in a breath, and tried to hold the sob at bay. Crying would make her chest hurt. But the effort not to cry hurt too, so she rested her arm over her eyes to hide the tears that leaked out. She needed her lighter. When the tears passed, she dragged her sleeve over her eyes and fumbled at her pocket. She held it in front of her face and watched the flame waxing and waning with each flick of the igniter and tried not to think. Eventually the pain in her chest lessened to an intense ache, and breathing came easier.

When they reached the hospital Raylan led their little party inside, while the Deputy walked at her side, steering her by the elbow. After a terse conversation with the triage nurse, they were shown to a room. Eve settled onto the bed, and the deputies each took a wall. She stared at the ceiling. He still hadn’t said a word to her. After an hour there was a knock on the door, and the doctor entered. Raylan nodded to him and moved out the door. Tim moved the opposite direction, setting himself between the doctor and Eve. Raylan, who’d been holding the door for his partner, turned around when he didn’t come through it.

“Tim, you coming?”

“Nope.” Calm, casual.

“You can’t stay in here, Tim.”

“The hell I can’t.” The contrast of calm voice and uncalm words was eerie.

“We came here specifically so she could see a doctor.” So reasonable. He pointed out the door. “Now get your ass out here.”

“Raylan, if you don’t walk out that door and leave me in peace, I’m gonna take a leaf out of her book,” a finger jammed in Eve’s direction, “and shoot you.” The shiteating grin he’d pasted across his face did nothing to belie the threat of his words, and Eve admitted to herself that it was incredibly attractive. There were a few things that needed admitting, namely that her earlier actions weren’t completely motivated by a sense of debt.

“She only threatened.” And when he saw Tim wouldn’t move, “Fine, be an asshole.”

“Deputy, it really is fine-” Eve began, only to be cut off by a sharp look and sharper words.

“After that little stunt, you lost the right to say what’s fine and what’s not.” Then he rounded on the doctor who was becoming increasingly unnerved by the exchanges in front of him. “She’s yours to examine, but if I see a syringe or a scalpel, I’m going to shoot you.” The other man nodded his understanding, and the Deputy took a step to the side.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Kiln,” he said by way of introduction as he helped her to a sitting position. “You must be Jane.”

She smiled but didn’t bother saying yes. “Nice to meet you, sir. I’m sorry about him.” She waved her hand in the direction of the irate Deputy. He gifted her with a stony stare.

Dr. Kiln sighed in resignation, but his professional sensibilities overcame whatever nerves he felt. “Let’s have a look at you, shall we?” She removed the sling, and he helped her out of the vest. She was halfway through the buttons of her shirt before she realized the Deputy was still looking at her. When he noticed her pause, his eyes adjusted up slightly, meeting hers, and without any change in expression, he rotated his body to focus his attention on Dr. Kiln. He stayed like that the rest of the visit. She wondered if the man had ever been flustered a day in his life. Suddenly, the nature of his moments of silence became less mysterious. She smiled inwardly.

“That’s a helluva bruise you’ve got there, young lady,” he remarked when her shirt was off. “Tsch.” He indicated the bandage covering her shoulder. “Do I even want to know what happened with that?”

“No.”

“Aren’t those two there supposed to be preventing this sort of thing?” The Deputy’s eyebrow crease scrunched some more.

“This was before they found me.” She pointed to her shoulder. “And this was because I’m bad at listening to directions,” she said gesturing to the ugly bruise on her chest.

“We’ll need to do an x-ray to see if it’s broken, but since it hit right there,” and he gestured to the spot over her left breast that was the epicenter of the bruise, “you may have gotten lucky. Perks of being a woman and all that.”

“Do I really need the x-ray?” He pursed his lips at her. Stupid hippies who hated the bad radiation. “I mean, I can breathe fine, it just aches, nothing sharp. And I don’t want to waste your time.”

His lips unpursed, “Sounds like this isn’t your first rodeo.” And he had her lay back down and lightly pressed his thumbs into her sternum and into the ribs below and to the side of her breast. It didn’t hurt as badly as expected, so he declared it either a very minor fracture or merely severely bruised. Either way, the x-ray was judged superfluous. _Yay, boobs_. He wrote a prescription for extra strength motrin. Eve already had stronger painkillers, so they skipped the pharmacy and headed straight to the airport.

o.O.o

“You done actin’ crazy?” Raylan always had to make a big deal out of nothing. Like he was one to talk.

“You gonna lecture me the whole flight back?” He was too tired for this shit. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, willing this conversation not to happen.

“Just pretend I’m Art, or Rachael.” Tim glared. “Geeze man, I thought I’d have to give the doctor a blowjob so he didn’t lodge a complaint.” Tim opened an eye. “I feel like most people would be grateful for that.”

Tim held up a finger as if to stop the train that was Raylan’s logic. “But you didn’t.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“Can I sleep now?”

“Only if you promise to stop being stupid.”

“Doesn’t Art try to make you do that all the time?”

“This is why you aren’t allowed to hold Willa.” But he relented, and they all slept like the dead until the pilot woke them when they reached Kentucky.

Rachel and Art were waiting for them when they touched down. Tim and Raylan exchanged the oh shit look, and wished they’d had more time to get their stories straight, or just agree upon a less shameful way to describe the day’s events.

“Would one of you jackasses would like to explain what happened?”

“It’s so good to have you back at the office, boss.”

“Get your lips off my ass, Tim.”

Tim figured he may as well be the one to tell it. Art just about hospitalized himself with laughter when he got to the part about Eve taking Raylan’s gun. Rachel snorted. Raylan glared. Then Art shook Eve’s hand, said “Nice to meet you,” and said if she ever did it again, she’d spend the rest of her time with the Marshals in cuffs. Tim glossed over the hospital visit, and after being ordered to call the Washington D.C. locals the next day to give statements, they were on their way to the safe house.

It was a little after nine o’clock when they pulled in. After being given a beer and the promise of leftovers Raylan took up position on the front porch. Eve was piling what was left of the roast onto two plates to reheat in the microwave. She stuck one in for a couple minutes and pulled a beer out of the fridge. She took a long gulp, made a face, and held it out to him.

“Here, I don’t really like beer.”

“Then why’d you drink it?”

“That kind of day.”

“I think there’s some bourbon in the cabinet above the fridge.”

“Gross,” but she pulled it down anyways, poured a generous shot, and tossed it back. She made a face. He wished he could do the same. God knew he could use it. But instead, he leaned back against the counter next to her and took a swig of the beer. “I’m sorry if I got you guys in trouble with your bosses.”

“ _That’s_ what you’re sorry about?”

“Yes.”

“How about all the other stupid shit you did?” Who was he kidding? The only reason he was pissed was because she’d been hurt, could have been hurt worse.

“You know what? You can stop being pissed at me. How else was that going to go down? Do you really think you and Raylan were going to talk your way out of it?” She was talking too fast and gaining volume as she went. Eve poured herself another shot and downed it. Her hand stayed on the bottle. Tim frowned, trying to remember the last time she’d taken a painkiller. He decided she’d had enough and put the bottle back in the cabinet. “I’m the one who created this whole damned mess in the first place. It was my responsibility to clean it up.” She was on a roll now. “And like hell was I gonna let that prick shoot you. Cause that was all I saw happening if I didn’t do what I did. You think that’s the kind of person I am? Go fuck yourself.” She definitely wasn’t that. This was the problem, on so many levels.

“You think obligation and responsibility justifies you getting yourself killed?”

“No, but-”

“Then what does? ‘Cause I’d love to hear it.” He already knew. The microwave beeped.

“You gonna let me get that?”

“Not until you start listening.”

“Oh like you haven’t done stupid shit in your life? Your boss greeted you by calling you jackass. Sounds like you do stupid shit regularly. I like him by the way.” She toasted her empty glass to Art.

“I do stupid shit all the time. Why do you think I’m standing here?” Her expression turned stony, closed. She was entirely missing the point. Then again, he was awful at making it. He wished he’d had more than half a beer. _Aw hell._

She made to walk around him, but he stepped in her way. And before she could protest, he had grabbed her shoulders and was pressing his mouth to hers. It was soft, almost a brush, once, twice. The hitch in her breath at his sudden action made his stomach flip, but he forced himself back. His lips stayed hovering just above hers as his hands slid upwards to frame her neck. She could have run then, but instead he felt her hands skimming up his sides, coming to rest tentatively around his waist. He opened his eyes. Her breathing came hard, but the anger in her face was fading to confusion, and then finally to something else. And it was that something else he saw that had him dragging her back up to meet him, and the sounds she made when she fisted her hands in his shirt and pulled him closer went straight south. Soon she was backed against the counter, his arms wrapped around her like a drowning man grasping a life raft.

The sharp clang of a can hitting the floor startled them apart. Raylan was standing in the door way, one eyebrow cocked. “Talk to you a minute?”

Eve busied herself with the microwave, and Tim followed Raylan outside.

“Ava Crowder.”

“What?”

“Before you say anything to me, just remember that.”

“You remind me of Vasquez.”

“I’m just sayin’.”

“Of course you are.” Raylan sighed. “What the hell are you thinking? _Were_ you thinking?”

“I was as a matter of fact.”

Raylan grimaced and ran a hand over his face. “God dammit, Tim.”

“I’d take it as a favor if you didn’t tell anyone about that.”

“How long?”

“How long were you standing there?”

“I can’t talk, but I sincerely hope you don’t let this bite you in the ass.”


	9. Rainier

They’d looked up, and there was Raylan standing there, looking for all the world like a mischievous cat who’d just knocked the goldfish bowl off the counter, only instead of a fishbowl it was a coke can. Hopefully Tim wasn’t in trouble. Raylan didn’t seem like the sort who was much of a stickler for rules anyways. _But sheeeeiittt._ It took a moment for her to realize she was cold because the fridge was open and she was standing dumbly in front of it holding a Tupperware full of mashed potatoes, and she probably ought to start eating before indulging herself in daydreams of Deputy Dreamy. Christ, she was starving. Putting thoughts of the Deputy on hold, she swept through the kitchen gathering whatever easily available food she could carry to the table. As she began chewing her way through a bucket of leftover potatoes, salad, cream cheese and bagels, and a quarter tub of ice cream, Eve allowed her mind to wander back to Deputy Gutterson.

Sweet Jesus, what a surprise, but a delicious one, and she wanted nothing more than to continue where they’d left off if only he’d just come back inside and Raylan could be obliging enough to stay the hell out of the house. But as she worked her way through the smorgasbord laid out in front of her, the afterglow faded, replaced by the anxiety that comes with unanswered questions and a predisposition towards overthinking. Her chewing slowed. What did he want? Was this a kink U.S. Marshals had? Not that she didn’t fancy a good throwdown, but one night stands and casual flings felt stale, and waking up next to men she wanted out of her bed as soon as possible had lost its appeal sometime during college. No, she wanted something made sweeter, more intensely satisfying, by genuine feeling, something worthy of repeat performances. But was it real feeling, or was this all an illusion of romance, the product of adrenaline and danger that would fade in a quiet moment?

She gave the idea its due consideration. Damn, it wasn’t, not for her. She saw that smirk and the eyebrow crease she wanted to poke. A man with acidic sarcasm that hid something else that occasionally peaked out from below the surface. She saw him sitting across from her each night at a table that wasn’t hers making her laugh. And not a tittering polite laugh, but a full-bellied guffaw that made her shoot her drink out her nose, and he’d look pleased when he managed it too, not annoyed at her unladylike manners. And she would make him laugh too, reveling each time that crease smoothed out in a moment of mirth. She didn’t know near his whole story, but she knew she wanted to. But what was it for him? She palmed her forehead. There was not a way to say all this to a man without him hearing alarm bells and sirens and seeing a neon sign over her head reading “CRAZY.” She was in the middle of brushing her teeth, still trying to figure out how to relay a small, but unscary, piece of this information to him in a graceful way when she heard the front door open. After spitting a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink, she poked her head when she heard him coming down the hallway. She’d really meant to wait until she had everything planned out in her head, to sound like a mature, put together woman, but some things had a way of pushing their way out.

“Alright look, that was, um, _mmm_ ,” She bit her bottom lip as she said it, making it clear that _mmm_ implied only good things, “and you are just,” she waved her hand, indicating him with the same ‘ _mmm_ ’. Shit, this was already going to hell in a hand basket. She hadn’t even rinsed her mouth out. “Look, I’m not sure what this is… if there is a _this_ … and I’m not really in the mood for the whole wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kinda thing,” She was babbling, and she knew it, and she may as well just get it all out. “I mean, I’m definitely not going to ask for anything you aren’t willing to give, but I’m one of those people who likes clarity. The whole ‘mysterious’ thing always seemed like bullshit to me, so you know… blatant, blistering honesty… way less exhausting than stupid games…” She trailed off as another thought occurred to her. “Or did you just come in here to tell me that you’ve got a job you’d like to keep and this isn’t happening again?” She gave up and shut the bathroom door in his face, standing motionless with her eyes closed leaning over the sink. _Smooth, like fucking butter._ She sighed, rinsed her mouth, and fervently hoped she could avoid seeing him the rest of the evening. In the morning, she’d blame the painkillers and the booze and hope it was sufficient to recover her dignity. She opened the door.

“You finished?” Christ, he was still standing there, and he was laughing at her. _Bastard._ Actually, it was a deep, rumbling chuckle, and it was sexy, and the way he was leaning on one arm in the door frame made her hate how charming he was in the face of her shame.

“I’m really not good at this.”

He kissed her again, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her between him and the wall. “Neither am I, and it’s been a long time since I’ve tried, and even longer since I’ve tried to do it right.” But he’d try. She’d take it.

o.O.o

Not that Raylan wasn’t the cause of a few department shitshows, but Tim’s whatever-it-was with the witness made him twitchy. He wouldn’t rat of course, but being optimistic about how this was going to play out was difficult. Luckily, he had more time to consider how to talk Tim out of this; after a bit over a week straight on the protection detail, he was being rotated out for a bit. O’Grady, who’d be replacing him, while a charismatic and talkative sort, was _very happily married_ , and Raylan couldn’t have been happier for that. Tim was not. He’d looked as if he would argue, but had wisely kept his mouth shut at the last minute. As it was, Raylan was watching him through the glass in Art’s office passing Eve a card that he strongly suspected had his personal cell phone number written on the back.

“If I didn’t know Tim any better, I’d say he’s fixin’ to cause me some trouble.” Art was eying them too.

“She trusts him. And after everything she’s been through…” It wasn’t a lie, but he felt a twinge of guilt for the deception.

When Art gave a noncommittal grunt, but didn’t question the explanation, he breathed an internal sigh of relief. Raylan didn’t want to have to choose between his loyalties. He looked around to Rachel as she entered her/Art’s – he still wasn’t sure – office, pulling the door closed behind her. She pulled two photos out of the file she was carrying and passed them to him. He glanced before passing them back, the men who’d tried to take Eve in the parking garage.

“Washington P. D. identified them?”

“Yes, but as far as we can tell, they weren’t part of the mob. Or at least they have no records in D.C. and no one in the organization admits to recognizing them. They were working for Bobbie King, but he’d hired them from a private security company.” She turned a page, pulling out another photo and handing it to him. “Rainier Inc., founded and run by one Michael Rainier, former marine colonel. Mercenary work in the Middle East, maritime security, and apparently personal security as well.”

“Odd that they’d allow their employees to be involved in mob business,” Raylan observed, handing the photos back to Rachel.

“Maybe they don’t,” said Art, “but we’d like you to go ask them. They’re based in Florida, actually. Bring Tim after he’s taken a couple days; maybe the Ranger thing will make Rainier more talkative.”


	10. Runnin'

“Tim?”

“Yeah, what?”

“I’ve asked you the same damn question three times now, and you still haven’t managed to get all the way through an answer.”

“Jesus Christ, one second.” Tim was absorbed in typing out a text, and Raylan didn’t need two guesses as to whom. When he finally sent it and placed the phone back in his pocket, there was a barely perceptible smirk of satisfaction on his face.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I wasn’t your favorite anymore.”

“Raylan, we all know Rachel’s everyone’s favorite.” His phone buzzed again, and he frowned, staring out the window for a few moments before responding to the message on the screen. He held the phone in his hand rather than returning it to his pocket.

“Maybe you’re my favorite.”

“That’s only because I let you get me into trouble. Rachel’s too smart for that shit.” Another buzz, followed by more typing.

“What’s so important that you can’t be bothered to entertain me?”

“Someone is under the horribly mistaken impression that Superman can’t beat Thor in a fight.”

“Someone?”

“Yeah, some dipshit.”

“I thought she wasn’t a dipshit?”

“Everyone has their flaws.” His phone buzzed again, and Raylan heard a quiet but triumphant “heh,” before the phone went back in Tim’s pocket.

Tim was only marginally more entertaining on the plane ride to Miami, mostly preferring a book to conversation. Raylan didn’t mind, since now that he wasn’t driving, he wasn’t dependent on someone else for amusement.

Their meeting with Rainier was set for the next day. The man had graciously, or in Tim’s opinion sneakily, sent a car to bring the deputies to his offices.

“Even the building is douchy.”

“It’s Miami,” Raylan reasoned. “How do you already not like this guy?”

“You know just as well as I do that anyone too accommodating to law enforcement has something to hide.”

“You didn’t like him even before he sent the car.”

“Guy’s making a profit from war. What’s to like?” _Ah._

Tim probably would have described Rainier’s office as ‘douchy’ too. The desk was enormous, an ostentatiously ornate oak monstrosity, with a chair that looked as comfortable as it was expensive. They were politely beckoned to sit in two smaller chairs opposite the desk’s owner, and though both were designed with the utmost attention to the comfort of the ass occupying them, they were obviously chosen to be the inferiors of the chair behind the desk. Rainier wanted to make the power dynamic in his office obvious. _You may employ us, but you came to us because you need our strength._

Rainier’s appearance was at odds with the showy display of authority projected by his office. The suit, while well made, was simply cut, and the only adornment to his wardrobe was a plain gold wedding band. His hair was short, not military short, but a no nonsense cut that wouldn’t require effort or styling. All impression of authority came from his demeanor and manner of speech, a former officer who was used to speaking and having people listen. The pleasantries were brief.

“Can you tell us how your men came to be working for Bobbie King?” Raylan began the questioning. Whether out of a wish to unbalance, or from pure insolence, Tim refused to sit and had wandered to the window, settling his hip comfortably against the edge, just out of Rainier’s peripheral vision.

There was an open file resting on Rainier’s desk, but he never once referred to it. “When Mr. King came to us, he expressed concerns about his safety while traveling for business.”

“Between New York and Washington D.C.?”

“And Detroit, and sometimes internationally. His company had charitable interests in South America.” If he found Tim’s behavior disconcerting, he didn’t show it. He was the picture of confident relaxation, leaning back with one arm resting on the desk and the other draped over the arm of his chair.

“What did you know of King’s business?”

“Only his work at Koenensalz. To be clear, we pride ourselves on our discretion, but we don’t get involved in anything criminal.”

“Of course not,” Raylan waved his hand as if swatting the thought away.

“He must have been rolling in it to afford your company, especially two of your guys.”

“We weren’t privy to his finances, but his payments were never late.”

“His payments, I wanted to ask about that.” Raylan made a show of fiddling with his hat. “Seems the payments he made were a bit less than your usual rate.”

“He was in the trial period. We like to demonstrate our value to new clients, let them know we’re worth more.”

It was Tim who spoke up this time, keeping his gaze on something beyond the window as he asked, “Where’d you serve?”

“Behind a desk for the most part. Intelligence.”

When they’d taken their leave and were standing outside again, Tim let out a whistle. “Well if my dick were a divining rod for bullshit, it would be pointed back the way we just came.”

“For the life of me, I don’t know how you manage to switch between that and the language appropriate for a lady.” But he did agree with the sentiment behind the vulgarity.

“Wouldn’t know. I never bothered.”

o.O.o

He appreciated that about Eve. She didn’t mind his lack of filter, didn’t judge. At least not yet. Sometimes, he was afraid of the day when she would. Talking to her was like sinking into a warm Jacuzzi after a hard day, not like walking through the verbal minefield that was most of his short-lived relationships, if he could call them that. Sure, she didn’t always agree, but somehow she’d always let him know in a way that didn’t nag at him, that didn’t make him feel broken. It had been two not-so-patient days of waiting by his phone – he didn’t know he was the type – before he got a text.

_G’morning, Deputy Delicious._ The ridiculous nicknames, all permutations stemming from his job title, pleased him more than he cared to admit.

_It’s noon._

_It’s five o’clock somewhere._

_That’s what I told the bourbon when I woke it up._

_I meant a.m._ A few minutes went by, then, _Bourbon, huh?_ Maybe he should have waited a little longer before revealing that little character flaw. She made it hard to remember to be careful.

_Yep._

And just as he was regretting the conversation, his phone screen lit up. _Christ, haven’t you heard of mimosas?_

_Are you encouraging my alcoholism?_

_Fuck no, put that bottle back to bed, and come take me to the range. Otherwise, I’m gonna take O’Grady’s gun and Art’s gonna make good on that handcuffs promise._

_You’re making an argument for the opposite._

_Didn’t know that about you, Deputy._

_They say it’s good to learn something new every day._ He sobered up and went to get her, despite the picture she painted of the alternative.

He should probably give more of a shit about his job, but the higher ups were pissed at Raylan for Ava going rogue, and Eve just pretended that she felt more secure around the scary Ranger sniper man who’d rescued her. It didn’t really matter because most everyone wouldn’t suspect Tim was up to anything anyways; he was too much of a damaged antisocial misanthrope. He’d just have to pretend to Art and Rachel until she testified and got out of WITSEC… if she did. He ignored that he was thinking four whole months, give or take, into the future. For now he would see her every other week. Five days of babysitting, two days off, and a week of work involving other Marshal duties, and now that he was back from Florida, he’d be seeing her again this evening. Unfortunately, Raylan wouldn’t be accompanying him, just giving him a ride to the safe house. Rachel was sending him to D.C. to have a few words with Bobbie King and his mob associates. It meant Tim would have to behave.

_You gonna have a sandwich ready when I get there?_

_Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself. Up the ass. With a fork. Covered in tobasco sauce._

_Pretty sure that last part wasn’t in the movie.*_

“Jesus man, you’re about to see her.”

“So?”

“Twitterpated asshole.”

She didn’t have a sandwich for him; O’Grady had already ordered Chinese, but the smile Eve shown his way when he entered was sunshine after a storm. He wondered how it was that such a simple expression made something in him twist like that, how a person could have that effect on him. The idea was both uncomfortable and made him want to be closer to her at the same time. Luckily, the other Marshal’s presence meant he didn’t have to think about it right then. Dinner was pleasant, and afterwards O’Grady took a magazine and a sweet tea out to the front porch for his watch. Tim and Eve watched Archer together for a bit, but when she readied for bed he remained in front of the TV. No use in tempting himself with what was at the back of the house. But when she peaked out to say good night wearing only boxer shorts that showed off shapely legs and a tight tank top that showed off almost everything else, he dearly wished he could.

o.O.o

The worst thing was waking up in the middle of the night incredibly thirsty with a desperate need to pee. Eve felt it was unfair that those two things could go together. When she tiptoed into the kitchen for a glass of water she could still hear the TV and looked into the den to see Tim passed out on the couch. After switching it off, she turned to the unconscious Marshal. His neck would ache if he continued sleeping like that. She sat next to him, meaning to rouse him long enough to get him to a proper bed. But the moment the sofa took her weight, he’d flown upright, and one hand was locked around her neck, the other about her arm, and she was crashing into the floor. Her own hands flew to her neck, prying at his thumb, the weak point in his grip. She tried to bring her feet up, to push him back, but his knee came down, digging painfully into her stomach, pinning her in place. After a few seconds of struggling, his weight and grip abruptly vanished, and she sucked in air between coughs.

“Jesus shit Christ! Eve!” He somehow managed to simultaneously back away from her and surge forward in anger and concern.

She sat up, “It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?! Christ! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. God _dammit_ , I didn’t…” Now he retreated across the floor to the other end of the couch, pulling his knees up to his chest. He looked scared, whether at what he’d done or what she’d do, she wasn’t sure.

“It’s really ok.” She crawled towards him, but he flinched away. The doubt in his face and the way he ground the heel of his palms into his forehead made her want to put her arms around him, but she didn’t know if he’d let her.

“I’m sorry,” quieter this time. After a moment of silence, as his breathing returned to a normal rate, she heard him murmur, “This is usually when they get the runnin’ look in their eyes.”

She turned to face him, sliding an arm around his waist and tucking her face into the space between his jaw and collarbone. “It’s 2 a.m., does it look like I have the energy to be running places?”

 

*It’s from The Departed, great movie. And if you haven’t seen Archer, you should. It’s hysterically funny.


	11. clear

Raylan hated prisons. Most people avoided prisoner transport out of a hatred of the company and the boredom, but it was the place Raylan hated most. Sterile rooms that never seemed clean. He watched as Bobbie King was escorted into the interview room. Given the ambitious enterprises that the man had recently failed to undertake, he looked out of place, hardly an aspiring drug lord, just a nervous little man who was sleep deprived.

Raylan put on his best winning smile, the slightly Cheshire one that induced cooperation in all the more naïve criminals, which King certainly seemed to be. “Mr. King, so good of you to come.” He motioned him to a chair. “May I call you Bobbie?” As if he’d had a choice. Bobbie nodded in resignation, sitting as far back in his chair as possible, wary of this new visitor. “Forgive me, but you don’t seem the type I run into in these places.” That wasn’t true; he ran into all types, but flattery got you everywhere. “How’d you end up here?”

Raylan’s friendly behavior had the intended purpose of making the other man uneasy, questioning why he was putting on the nice cop act, and his answer was guarded. “I believe you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t already know that, officer.”

“Oh, not ‘officer’. Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens.” He pointed to the star on his belt. “And I do know the story, but I’m more concerned about the why than the what.” He schooled his face into a visage full of concerned curiosity. “You see, as far as I can tell from asking around, you’re not the sort I’d expect to be meeting here.” He flipped through a notepad with feigned attention. “Other than some complaints from female employees that were inadequately investigated, I can’t find any evidence of you stepping outside the line, not like this. You had money, toys, a solid career. This was a big step for you. You wanna tell me what happened?”

“Well, you know what they say – if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.”

“They must have had a very good pitch.”

King gave a dejected laugh. “Oh, yes. Mr. Cipriani did his research too, not well enough it seems. It was a great plan really.” It seemed that in light of the overwhelming evidence against him, he saw no benefit in beating around the bush.

“The whole thing was his idea?”

“He had it all planned out, from transportation to “washing the money” to who we’d be using to do the manufacturing. If only he’d picked that last one better, I wouldn’t be here.” The bitterness in his voice was pronounced.

“You’re telling me you didn’t pick Dr. Carlan?”

“No, Cipriani was the man with the plan.” His tone spoke of how he felt about people with plans.

“How would he have known so much about your company?”

“Hell if I know, they’re the mob. I figure they have their ways. He said she would be perfect, hadn’t been with us very long, young woman. Easiest demographic to manipulate and intimidate.”

Something niggled at the back of Raylan’s thoughts at those words. He didn’t buy the mob “having their ways,” and figured a visit to the mobster with a plan was in order.

Talking to Cipriani was frustrating. Unlike Bobbie King, he wasn’t a blushing criminal virgin, and was still holding out hope that legal technicalities, evasion, and more devious methods would get him out of the pickle he currently found himself in.

“You know, Mr. King was very complimentary about your business model.”

“And you’re here to ask about the secrets to success? If you need advice on breaking into the restaurant business, I’d be happy to offer some, Marshal.”

“I think he was referring to your other business model. The one where you planned on using his company to manufacture drugs.”

“One, who says I planned any such thing? Maybe he approached me. And two, and most importantly, I wouldn’t participate in that. I already own a legitimate business.”

“You also already have some illegitimate businesses, which is how you landed here in the first place. So let’s cut the bullshit, and you stop wasting my time so we don’t irritate each other any further.”

He gave Raylan a measuring look. “Well, as a successful businessman, I may be able to offer some advice about what I would do, were I interested in setting up such an operation.”

“I’m wondering how I might get the necessary information to set up such an operation in the first place.”

“Well, I’d try to find someone on the inside.”

“And you recommend I’d go about that how?”

“Well, theoretically speaking, if you were really lucky, they’d come to you.”

“That would be mighty lucky.”

o.O.o

Today was a good day; it was the start of Tim’s week, and Eve was eager to see him again. Which was why she was disappointed to see Raylan was the only person to step out of the car that had pulled into the drive.

“Well, don’t you look nice today.” The cowboy tipped his hat.

“Why thank you. Good morning, Marshal.”

“And yet you seem disappointed.”

“No more or less than usual.” Of course she was. Tim wasn’t here and Raylan was being complimentary. Raylan was never complimentary without also being something else.

“I’m early, Tim will be here soon.” He was smirking. _Smug jackass_. “Say, you got any of that sweet tea? It’s warm out today, and I reckon that would just hit the spot.”

“I think I do.” She was tempted to tell him to get it himself, but she needed to remain in his good graces.

“Oh, you’re an angel,” he said when she returned to the porch to hand him a glass. He took a long gulp. “I thought you’d be interested to know I had a conversation with Mr. King, and Mr. Cipriani after him.”

“Oh?” She sounded as uninterested as she could manage as she leaned against the rail sipping at her own tea. “Did you find out which one of them sent people after me?” His tone was too casual, set her on edge.

“Oh you know, guys like that never admit to anything.”

“Of course not.”

“It’s odd, I can’t figure out why Bobbie would have thrown in with those guys. Seems like kind of a wimp. How about you? Does he strike you as the type?” The smile playing around his mouth was dangerous.

She turned her body fully towards him, giving her answer her full conviction. “He’s not a good man, so no, it’s not a surprise.” She relaxed against the porch railing again. “Though, I doubt you have the same reservations about Cipriani.”

He chuckled. “No, I don’t. He deserves every piece of what he gets.” He took another drink of sweet tea, regarding her over the rim of the glass. “Though, I don’t think he can rightly claim to be _all_ of the brains behind the operation.” Eve wasn’t going to touch that one. Somehow, she got the feeling he wasn’t referring to Bobbie, and she was relieved so see Tim’s SUV pull onto the street.

“Eve,” Raylan leaned in closer, smiling for show. “If anything happens to him, and I think it’s even remotely your fault, I’m going to personally turn your world to shit.”

That, at least, was another answer she could give with perfect confidence. “I’ve already made clear the lengths I’ll go to to keep him from harm.” She desperately hoped that, if nothing else, he believed that. The look on his face said he might.


	12. Saints

“Can I trust you to behave while I’m out?”

“I’m a saint, Raylan.”

“Well, with you and the witness carrying on ….” Raylan trailed off meaningfully.

“Raylan, when is it you think we’ve had all this time to ‘carry on’? Unless you want to make that twenty minutes turn into a couple of hours, then yes, saint.”

“Nope.” He fantasized about wiping the smirk off the other man’s face, or maybe just knocking him unconscious for a bit. Mostly he fantasized about having longer than twenty minutes. God, the only time he’d been more sexually frustrated was sitting on top of a hill in Kandahar waiting to shoot someone for four days.

The last few months had been a series of exquisite tortures. Even when it was actually his week to watch over her, he was usually partnered with someone who wasn’t Raylan, meaning that out of a desire to keep his job and to keep seeing her, physical contact was almost nonexistent. And even when he was partnered with Raylan, he still had to behave himself. The other Marshal, while not a tattletale, found a way to maintain a near constant, cockblocking presence. As if Art didn’t owe the rest of them plenty of leeway after the shit Raylan constantly pulled _and_ got away with. The frustration bordered on agonizing. Every now and then there was a stolen kiss, cut short far too soon, and only serving to heighten his frustration. He discovered little bits and pieces of her here and there, the sensitive spot on the insides of her wrists, and the spine-tingly delicious sounds she made when he kissed her neck. It was a weak spot, and he took every advantage of it when time allowed.

Eve, of course, was entirely unhelpful, at once too respectful of his position and a terrible tease, though he admitted to himself that he liked both. She refused to be responsible for him losing his job, and her gentlemanly concern for him only made the situation all the more torturous, even if a part of him was touched by it. Most of the teasing wasn’t on purpose, and her ignorance of it was endearing. As summer reached its peak, she rarely wore anything but tank tops and cut-off shorts that barely covered her ass, and spent a fair amount of time on her hands and knees covered in dirt from pulling up weeds from the back yard. He liked watching her garden, and he often brought her ice cold drinks as an excuse to have a more up close view. Sometimes she would throw on a bathing suit and read while she tanned, and after she came inside, flushed with her hair messy from wind and work, he couldn’t help but fantasize about ways _he_ could make her look like that.

Sometimes though, she knew exactly what she was doing. She was just as frustrated as him, and that knowledge burned like whiskey in his gut. One night while making dinner she’d held out a pot, asking him to try the contents, and before he could lick the sauce off his finger, she’d taken hold of his hand and done the job for him. The slow, languorous way she swirled her tongue as she sucked the liquid off, eyes looking at him with as much unsated lust as his, sorely tested his self-control. He told her as such, as well as everything he’d do right then if time and work had permitted it. Her enthusiastic support of his ideas, as well as a few whispered suggestions of her own, prompted him to take a longer run than usual that evening, followed by a shower that was far too cold for comfort.

He sighed and walked back inside to the table where he’d been cleaning his guns.

“Where’s he going?” Eve poked her head in from the back yard.

“He wanted ice cream.”

“Gotcha. Want some help with those?” She jerked her chin at the weapons on the table. “I’m getting hungry, and the faster those are off the table, the faster I get to eat.” She went back outside briefly to hose off the grime from the day’s work.

“Sure.” He was mildly irritated that she chose now to get finicky about guns on the table, but sat down to give his attention to the weapon in front of him. He was interrupted a moment later as his chair was dragged backwards, away from the table. Before he could react Eve was pressed against his back, her hands traveling smoothly down his chest, while her lips explored the side of his neck. Groaning, he took hold of one of her wandering hands and dragged her around to face him, pulling her down to straddle his hips. “I thought you wanted your table.”

“What’s this about a table?” She smirked and resumed her explorations.

“Tease.” And in one swift motion a hand was pinning both of hers behind her back, and his other was tangled in her hair, pulling her head to the side to better access her neck. She shuddered rather delightfully as he made his way from the underside of her jaw down to her collarbone, but she twisted away, disentangling her hands from his grasp.

“Oh, I’d like nothing better.” The low huskiness in her voice and the gleam in her eye were nigh irresistible. “But if you do anymore of that, we’re like to be in some serious trouble.”

“As if I’m not already,” he retorted. She settled his hands on her thighs, and he moved them higher, kneading, as she slowly undid the buttons of his shirt, her mouth following her progress. He felt her lips smile against the hollow of his throat when his breath caught. His pants were becoming too tight.

“You have another tattoo.” Her eyes sparkled at the discovery.

“You like it?”

“No, I hate it.” She grinned, “Dummy.”

“Do you have any?”

“I always liked the idea of having one.” She wasn’t telling, and his pants grew tighter at the thought of discovering the truth for himself.

“That was a yes or no question.”

“I know.” There was a smirk on her lips and mischief in her eyes, daring him to find out, and again he wished for more than twenty minutes. Her lips continued traveling down his chest, coming to a stop a second later when she made another discovery. “I didn’t know you still wore them.” She raised her head to examine the dog tags that still hung around his neck. “Ouch.” She turned the tags over in her hand, moving them to the side and inspecting the scars underneath. She looked up at him, thumb trailing over the crisscrossing threads of too-white flesh. “Someday I’m gonna ask, you know,” she said quietly, looking down again, nervous. He knew she wanted to know, saw the uncertainty, the fear that that need would spook him. He adored the way she was patient, and it made him want to make her understand, to tell her, but he didn’t know how yet.

“Then someday I’m gonna tell you.” It was a promise. He cupped a hand around the back of her neck and leaned in to kiss her again, but was startled by the sound of the door opening.

By the time Raylan reappeared to grab a spoon for his ice cream, Eve was at the kitchen sink digging the rest of the dirt from under her nails, and Tim was studiously oiling the barrel of his rifle, shirt buttoned to the top.

“Saint huh?” He leaned against the table next to Tim and shoveled a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. “Since when do saints leave hickeys?” The spoon swung lazily to indicate Eve.

“Fuck off.”

o.O.o

He found Tim in the office kitchen, leaning comfortably against the counter, coffee in hand, watching Dr. Carlan through the glass window of the conference room. There was a distinct lack of scowl on Tim’s face, maybe even a bit of a smile if you were at the right angle, just a small one, softly tugging at the corners of his mouth. And there was a wistful look in his eye that Art didn’t like one bit, and he wondered for a second time if Tim was fixing to cause him trouble. He gave an internal sigh and hoped Raylan hadn’t rubbed off too badly on the rest of his staff.

“Tim.” There was a friendly edge of warning in his voice.

“Yeah, boss?”

His eyes flicked conspicuously to the witness and then back to Tim’s. “ _Tim_.”

Tim’s only response was a snort before pouring himself more coffee and sauntering off to Art’s office. He wondered if that was supposed to be comforting and followed, closing the door behind him.

“What do you have Raylan?”

“I think our witness is hiding something.” Just what he needed to hear, that their perfect case that came packaged neatly with a cherry on top was about to fall apart because the witness was not on the up and up.

“Christ,” Resigned, Art pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how smelly this shitstorm was about to be. “What’s the damage.”

“Wait,” Rachel held up a hand. “All the evidence she turned in to us has been checked and double checked. The prosecutor wanted to make sure he has King, and Cipriani especially, dead to rights. It’s solid.” That sounded encouraging, but the rocks in the bottom of his stomach stayed.

“Well, the good news is that Rachel’s right about that. There shouldn’t be any damage to the case.”

“But?” Art raised his eyebrows, refusing to be optimistic until he’d heard everything.

“Cipriani implied that the original idea for their little operation didn’t come from him, _or_ from Bobbie King. Someone else from Koenensalz approached him with the idea. King and the witness both said that as far as they knew, they were the only two people in the company with any knowledge of the scheme.”

“Is there any proof it was Eve?” Tim asked.

“Looking at the phone records of all Koenensalz employees, as well as Cipriani, all we see is King, but both of them agree that King was not the one to approach Cipriani.”

“I don’t see how that proves it was her.”

“That’s a bit thin, Raylan.” Art was inclined to agree with Tim.

“Yes, but then there’s Rainier, the guy who runs the security company. Turns out Eve’s father and Rainier knew each other.” Raylan held up a couple of thick files as he spoke.

“Holy shit, you read all that?” Rachel covered a smirk with the back of her hand, and Art tossed Tim the shut-up look, but felt a bit hypocritical since he was trying to stifle a grin himself.

“Not _all_ of it.” Raylan rolled his eyes. “Just the relevant parts.” He glared pointedly at everyone before continuing, “Seems Koenensalz worked for the U.S Army at one point doing research into something to do with Gulf War syndrome. Part of it’s classified, but the lead researcher on the project was Dr. Carlan Sr., and the military coordinator was Rainier.”

“Well ain’t that a helluva coincidence,” said Art.

“So you’re saying her daddy and Rainier knew each other, and twenty years later Eve and Rainier decided to start a drug manufacturing ring, which she then just up and decides to sabotage because…why?” Rachel’s voice was skeptical.

“Look, I’m not sayin’ she’s guilty of anything, but that’s enough coincidences that they aren’t coincidences.”

“Have you asked her about any of this?” Rachel wondered.

“Not yet.”

“Don’t.” Art cut in firmly. “First I want this trial done before we start mucking things up. Regardless of anything else, I want to see those men in prison.” Raylan looked about to protest, but Art held up his hand. “However, I do want you to look into it. See if you can find a solid link between Eve and Cipriani, and see if there is any more current communication between her and Rainier.”


	13. laxative roulette

“You’d think with the number of favors I’ve done for you, you could have mentioned all that a bit earlier!” Tim was livid, yelling at Raylan in a whisper outside of Art’s office.

“You know why I didn’t.”

“Bullshit!” The urge to give in and sucker punch Raylan was nearly overwhelming.

“I wanted to poke around more before I said anything.”

“And I’m always the one you get to do most of the poking for you.”

“Would you have believed me?”

“Give me some goddam credit, Raylan.”

Tim might be pissed, but Raylan was right. That was a lot of coincidences. He played it over in his mind. As he saw it, there were two possibilities. One, she was involved and for whatever reason had turned on her partners. Maybe she wanted to cut out extraneous personnel and run the whole thing herself or with Rainier. As she herself had pointed out, as head of one of the R&D labs, Eve wouldn’t have needed anyone else in the company to make it work, only Rainier, the piece of shit and apparent trusted family friend, to handle security and transport. Even if all of that wasn’t true, she was still hiding something, and in his extensive experience, people mostly hid things that they knew would get them in trouble. What was worse, he’d let his guard down, allowed himself to start being comfortable, risked his goddam job for her. She’d taken a nice steaming dump on that, and he hated himself for letting her. Well fuck that, and fuck her, and fuck Raylan for not saying something sooner. Hell, fuck everything. He needed a drink, badly.

He’d been good for a while, ever since he’d shown up to the VFW hall too tipsy for Art’s comfort, and Art had given him a dressing down the next day about how he already had one problem child and didn’t want to be bailing out another of his deputies for idiotic behavior. A perverse part of his heart had warmed at the idea that Art had enough faith in him to yell and set him straight. So he’d tried to clean himself up, and had done a reasonably good job for the most part, never more than two drinks a night or a weekend morning, even if they were sometimes doubles. And he never got in a car without being sure he was sober. Tomorrow morning’s hung-over version of himself was already disappointed in the bender he was about to embark on. But with little effort and thin excuses, he convinced Nelson to cover for him the rest of the day and went to find the type of establishment that wouldn’t cut you off when you’d clearly had too much.

Tim had underestimated hung-over Tim’s disappointment, mostly the misery of the hangover. His mouth was filled with stale cotton, and the sledgehammer in his head had slowed the cogs of his brain to a solid two miles per hour. He was out of practice, hazily wondering if that was good or bad. He still had his pants and wallet and was in his own bed – alone – so he couldn’t have gotten into too much trouble, thank God. He didn’t need Art’s disappointed mom look and the accompanying lecture. Used to be when he drank like this, the next day he could just drink some more to stave off the ill effects. The space between sober and functioning alcoholic was a bitch. As he was waking he pondered tipping a little bourbon into his coffee to mitigate some of the headache and felt an immediate flash of guilt at the prospect of facing Eve in such a state. Then the events of yesterday slowly trickled back, like thickened syrup dripping over ice, and his resentment towards the reason for his hangover intensified. He tipped a little more than he intended and drank it down anyways.

It was a relief that Eve was out in the back when he arrived; he wasn’t ready to face her or the multitude of questions he had for her. Unfortunately, his reprieve was short-lived. As he was rooting around in the medicine cabinet, trying to find pain medication that could be mixed with alcohol, he heard footsteps in the hallway. The footsteps weren’t wearing boots, so it wasn’t Raylan, and that left her.

“Jesus Christ, you look like shit.” Eve was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. Her cheeks had a sun-touched glow that extended down to her chest in a rather distracting way. He liked the view, and it pissed him off. “Where did you go yesterday?” She put her hand on his arm, and when he didn’t turn from his rummaging, she increased the pressure to pull him to face her. “What happened?” He stiffened. The capacity for subtlety and mincing words had left him last night at the bar.

“Why’d you do all this?” He wasn’t completely ignoring Art’s orders, but he felt guilty all the same. Nevertheless, he wanted to know.

She retracted her hand, recrossing her arms and taking a step back, brows arching together. Whatever she’d expected from him, it hadn’t been that. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not.” Her voice lost all of its usual humor and warmth. “Do what?” Each syllable was carefully separated.

He leaned on both hands against the sink, staring uselessly into the medicine cabinet. He wouldn’t look at her. “All this shit with King.”

“To put him in jail.”

“Why.”

She wasn’t the least bit cowed by his words or the dead hardness in his voice, and her response was emotionless, detached rote recitation. “My aim, from the beginning was to make sure that Bobbie King ended up in prison. He and Cipriani are both shitbags and deserve every ounce of what they’ve gotten themselves into.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, she turned and walked out the door, continuing whatever project she had going in the yard. A piece of him winced in that moment, like he was losing something, and it was his fault rather than hers, but he shoved it aside to focus on her answer. ‘To make sure Bobbie King ended up in prison.’ She didn’t say ‘Bobbie King and Anthony Cipriani,’ just Bobbie King. It was a straight answer, and she seemed to mean it, but something about it struck him as incomplete, and that grated.

o.O.o

It wasn’t awkward, just quiet. Eve didn’t speak unless spoken to, or unless it was about something mundane, like grocery lists or schedules. When she did speak, it was polite and concise, never spending any longer in the Marshals’ presence than necessary. Raylan would have kicked Tim if the man wasn’t already doing it for him. He’d shown up a mess the day after the meeting. While he’d managed to not repeat that day, he was in a sour mood, and every conversation with Tim came with an extra dose of sarcasm and snark. They didn’t talk about her except in the clinical terms Marshals discuss witnesses, or cops a suspect.

Whether out of a need for vengeance or a way to distract himself from drinking, or both, Tim had commandeered all of Raylan’s files and combed through them with the sort of singular determination that would have made Vasquez proud. Once he’d read all that Raylan had gathered, he moved onto everything else – phone records, tracking travel and purchases, all the investigative grunt work that Raylan hated. Tim had a better eye for patterns and detail anyway, being a military trained hunter and all that.

A paper was flapping in his peripheral vision, and he swiveled to look up at Tim, who was leaning across the divider dangling a photograph over the side. His eyes flicked back up to Tim before taking the photo; he was in a grimly good mood, and it was a tad disconcerting.

“Look familiar?” Raylan squinted and leaned closer to the image. A couple sat at an outdoor café on a sunny day sharing a meal. Judging by the number of plates on the table it had been long, leisurely. Both appeared relaxed and at ease with each other, the photo seeming to capture the moment of a shared a joke.

“That’s Cipriani, and the woman is….?”

Tim rolled his eyes impatiently. “Jesus dumbass, why do you think I’m bothering to show this to you?”

“How much longer are you gonna be on your period?”

“Dunno, only started on Tuesday.”

“How can you tell it’s her?” He turned the photograph, inspecting it more closely.

“Well, that’s a wig, a really convincing one too, but I’d bet my whole nutsack that’s her. See the freckle pattern on her cheek?” It was her alright. In this case he hated to be right in his suspicions, for the case, but also for his friend.

“You couldn’t find phone records or emails, how’d you get that?”

Tim twirled the photo back out of Raylan’s grasp, a darkly satisfied expression on his face. “I have my sources.” If only they could all have someone in the FBI so willing to share information. “Did you find anything else on the father?”

“Nothing interesting or relevant, and you’re not like to either unless you can read through black highlighter.”

“Well then, I think now is when we go have a chat with daddy dearest.” Oh, he’d been afraid of that.

“You mean me.”

“Could be wrong, but I think you just mispronounced ‘we’.”

“Pretty sure I just said you ain’t comin’.”

Tim took an exaggerated look around the office, hand over his brow, eyes in a squint. “Shit, sorry, I had no idea my boss was around.”

“Tim, your shift starts in two days, and a day after that you and Rachel are headed to D.C. with her for the trial.”

“I can trade with someone.”

“Not for the trial. After what happened last time, you think Art is gonna let you out of that?”

Tim fixed Raylan with a hard stare. It would have been more intimidating if he wasn’t twelve. “My hand to God, you don’t tell me what you know when you know it, I’ll play laxative roulette with your coffee.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved his hand at what he hoped was an empty threat and went to book a plane ticket.


	14. lighters

“You seem remarkably unconcerned that your daughter is in witness protection waiting to testify against the mob.” Raylan was having a difficult time wrapping his head around Eve’s father. Garrett Carlan was either naïve or indifferent, neither of which seemed to apply to the man, nor was it in keeping with the fond way he’d heard Eve talk about her father. Dr. Carlan Sr. was not some doddering old eccentric scientist retired to the suburbs. In fact he was a rather spry 58 and was currently favoring Raylan with a sharp, appraising gaze as he spoke about his Eve.

“Of course I’m concerned, but there’s no reason to be paranoid about it, is there? Are you not doing your job?” Garrett dipped the coffee pot in Raylan’s direction, but he waved it off. “Her letters say she’s doing well.”

_Seriously?_ “You do know she was shot,” Raylan began slowly. He tried to remember how many letters the Marshals had passed between Eve and her family and when.

“Yes, twice, if I recall.” Raylan stared. He’d been a father all of a couple of months, and there was no universe in which he imagined talking of such events with the calm composure of the man in front of him. “She bounced back quite well, no? She’s always been a strong girl.” Finally, he saw a touch of parental pride.

“I don’t disagree on any particular point,” he conceded.

“She did mention that neither time was the fault of the Marshal Service.” The sharpened smile affixed to Garrett Carlan’s face suggested that they all might be sorry if it were. Not indifferent then, and too sharp to be naïve.

“Has she mentioned anything else in her letters?” Raylan took a sip of his coffee. “About the case perhaps?”

“The only parts she mentioned before leaving Washington were that her boss tried to coerce her into a drug ring with the mob and that she was going to turn in the evidence she collected against him to the government.”

“That was the first time she spoke of it, when she was leaving?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Had she spoken much of her work before?”

“Not overly much, sometimes when she was excited about a new project, or had hit a wall and wanted someone to bounce ideas off of.”

“She ever mention her boss, Mr. King?”

“Her boss’s boss. She wasn’t fond of him. Said he was a bit of an ass.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“A sleaze, in several senses of the word, professionally and otherwise. Though I understand he managed to hide it well enough. Type of man you don’t want around your daughter, if you catch my drift.”

“Did he ever … misbehave to her?”

Garrett chuckled at that. “As if she’d let him. No, just the drug thing, ‘s far as I know.” He set down his cup and eyed Raylan across the table. “I’m sure it’s clear, though, that neither likes the other. So would you mind telling me exactly what it is that you’re trying to ask me?”

“You used to work at Koenensalz.”

“I did.” His eyebrows raised a fraction in curiosity at this new line of questioning.

“And you worked with a Colonel Michael Rainier on a project for Gulf War syndrome?” There was an immediate shift in Carlan’s posture at the mention of Rainier. His spine straightened towards the Marshal, and his coffee was abandoned on the side table by the couch. Raylan had his full attention.

“What does he have to do with this?” The question was clipped, demanding.

“I think that’s what I’m trying to ask you.”

“Since I don’t know, I’d appreciate a direct answer Marshal.”

This was not how he’d expected this conversation to go. Some evasion, some chuckling about good times, but not the one hundred and eighty degree turn from unconcerned about his daughter being shot to raised hackles at the mention of a man’s name. “Would I be correct in assuming you hold no love for the man?”

“You would.”

“And would you mind tellin’ me why?”

“We had a disagreement about the applications of my research.”

“Which was?”

“Simply put, I felt the drugs we were developing had more uses than treating Gulf War syndrome, actually, they weren’t much use at that at all. They ought to have been put to other medical uses, and I applied for testing in those areas. The preliminary data was quite promising, but he said no, pulled rank, and had the whole project taken from us. I may have misplaced some papers in the process.” He leaned forward, intent. “Now, I’d like it if you told me what Rainier has to do with all this.”

Raylan related the factual events of Rainier’s involvement, or rather his men’s. He was a bit choosier about the speculation of what it all implied, but managed to tactfully hint that it cast Eve in a shaded light.

“No.”

“No to what?”

“No, there is no way my daughter is in league with Michael Rainier or any of the rest of those men, over anything.”

“I’m sure as a father it can be difficult to see children make mistakes –”

“Marshal, I’m starting to realize that my daughter has not been entirely honest with me, but I do know that whatever his involvement, Michael Rainier means her harm. Whatever the pretense, he sent his men there for her. And just because they failed doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying.”

“Why would he want to kill her?”

“He doesn’t; he means to take her.” He stood and strode to the door, leaving Raylan to trail after him.

“And why would he do that?”

“Maybe he thinks he can get the work back that way. Now, if you’ll excuse my rudeness, I have a busy day ahead of me.” And he pulled his phone from his pocket as he ushered Raylan out of the house.

o.O.o

He still wasn’t speaking to her, and most of the time avoided even looking at her too. It had all the outward appearance of professional indifference, but Eve knew the real reason, and a part of her ached. She’d never lied to him, to any of them. She’d been very careful about it in fact. But weaving truth, especially such a juicy one, was a particularly effective way to cover a lie of omission, which is what it was, and oddly this was what nagged at her conscience over everything else. Tim had asked her about Bobbie, and he’d known, or at the very least suspected. He’d been drunk, and she felt a new stab of guilt at being the one to drive him to it, for breaking something she hadn’t fully earned.

In an effort to distract herself from the smoking ruin that was no longer her quasi-relationship with Tim, Eve turned her mind to more practical matters. Her plan had been hurried, but she hadn’t been arrested or formally questioned, so they had nothing of true significance yet. And still her gut said it would soon be time to cut ties and run, or hopefully walk. She didn’t want to run, _especially not from him_ a pesky little voice added. _Dammit._

“We’re here.” Tim’s clipped tone jogged her thoughts back to the present. She stretched the cricks and aches from her joints and muscles and smoothed her slacks. This time they’d driven to Washington. Someone had decided that her mode of transportation should be different than last time to throw off the scent of anyone who planned to throw a wrench in things. On this visit to the courthouse Tim got out of the car cautiously, checking the parking garage while she and Deputy Brooks waited for the all clear. Nothing was amiss, so she was escorted to the prosecutor’s office, Tim leading from the front and Brooks guarding her back. It all seemed like too much trouble and paranoia for a pretrial meeting that could easily have been conducted over skype.

It was exactly as she’d expected it to be – long, boring, and in Eve’s view useless. She didn’t need to be coached, having her testimony and facial expressions scripted for her. She’d planned this more thoroughly than the prosecutor could have hoped for, and there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d let it all go to shit on the witness stand. But he didn’t know that, so she smiled and bore it, and watched the clock until she could escape.

When she finally did escape, it was to an empty face. “Deputy Brooks’ll be back in a moment.” His tone, devoid of inflection, and speaking as few words as humanly possible was enough to make her scream. She’d rather scrape her knuckles bloody on cinderblocks than have to keep listening to it. She wanted to slap him and yell in his face until he understood, but then she’d end up in jail and her work would be for naught. Eve liked him dammit, really liked him, and it stung to have him think of her, act towards her, like this. But like the prosecutor, he didn’t know what she’d done or why, so she drowned the screaming voice in the back of her mind in a pool of calm and pulled a polite smile over her face, taking a seat on the wooden bench outside the office to wait.

Tim’s phone rang. He looked down at the screen and swiped at it. “Raylan?” he answered, taking a few steps down the hall. Deputy Brooks still hadn’t returned, so he couldn’t wander far, and she strained to listen. It was a futile endeavor. The man was a master at mumbling, and she couldn’t read his lips because most of the time they barely moved when he spoke anyways. Eve settled for stealing glances, pretending to be bored. Now and then he glanced back, whether at her or down the hall past her, she wasn’t sure. Eventually, she became reasonably certain it actually was at her, and his face even contained an expression – appraising, speculative. She wondered if that boded well or ill. As the conversation progressed his attention left her and focused more on their surroundings, and when he hung up the phone Tim came to stand next to her, eyes roaming the hall. He still didn’t speak, but the scowl of latent hostility was not as pronounced. Soon after that Deputy Brooks reappeared, and they were off, taking a long and convoluted path to the hotel.

o.O.o

Eve suppressed a sigh of triumphant relief as she stretched out in the back seat. She was exhilarated, riding high, mission accomplished…practically. She’d played her part to perfection, and there’d been a moment where she’d had a strong urge to high-five the prosecutor as she stepped down from the stand. They’d rot in prison, and damn if that didn’t feel good, long day at a spa after a week of hard work good. She looked at the two Marshals in the front seat and wished she could convince them to stop at a liquor store for a bottle of champagne. But they didn’t seem to share her elation, the opposite in fact. Their eyes were moving around too much, expectant, edgy. She’d testified, her evidence had been presented, and now whatever someone might want, it would be useless to try to hurt her, and yet their caution had only increased once she’d finished. Maybe she’d underestimated Anthony’s bitterness and need for revenge at being used. _Eh, he deserved it_ , she thought, and nothing was going to rain on her parade today. She shifted onto her side and opened her book, making herself comfortable for the eight-odd hour drive back to Lexington.

The atmosphere in the car eventually grew more relaxed as they left Virginia behind. No one had been following them, and she was allowed to sit up to read, something for which her cramped and aching shoulder was grateful. When talk turned wistfully to food and grumbling bellies, it was decided that dinner would be whatever fast food was nearest to the next gas station they passed. Luckily for their complaining stomachs it didn’t take too long for signs to appear pointing them to a nearby truck stop. Tim took their orders, and Rachel accompanied Eve to the ladies room.

“This feels like middle school, having a bathroom buddy.” Eve grinned and was pleased to have gotten chuckle from Deputy Brooks. She seemed like a no nonsense sort who needed to laugh more. There was a sense of humor under there, but dedication to professionalism kept it reigned in, at least around her. The chuckle cut short when the door opened.

“What is it?” The only people Rachel knew in this establishment were Eve and Tim, and she wasn’t talking to Eve. After taking a moment to be grateful that she’d finished her business, before male company arrived, Eve buttoned up and walked out to wash her hands. Tim was standing with the door open, half in the bathroom and half in the hall, eyes scanning the rest of the restaurant.

“Two guys pulled up outside. They’re just sittin’ there. My spidey sense is tingling.”

Rachel unsnapped her holster. “I’ll take her around back. You grab the truck.” As Tim left the doorway for the parking lot Rachel edged into his place with a muttered, “Knew we shoulda gone through the drive-thru.” After glancing around, she opened the Employees Only door, and motioned Eve through after a quick check. No one questioned the gun and the badge as they passed. Rachel motioned to Eve to crouch behind her by the backdoor as she cracked it, looking out for Tim, only to slam it five seconds later when the first shots rang out.

“Shit!” Rachel threw them both to the side. But the shots weren’t at them; they were coming from out front. She looked down at Eve, trying to figure out how to aid her partner without putting their witness in the line of fire. She whipped out her phone. “Tim?” Eve could hear the loud crack of gunfire on the other end of the phone, as well as some indistinct yelling. “How many?” Rachel asked … “Rainier’s?”

Eve froze, her brain stuttering around the name that had come tumbling out of Rachel’s mouth. _No. No. Nonononono. No._ Her pulse pounded like she’d been stabbed in the heart with a double shot of adrenaline. How had they not mentioned him? Asked her about him? How had _he_ found out? Bobbie had no idea what he’d had. Howthe _fuck_ didRainierfindout? Her mind was tripping over itself in panic. She had to go. _Shit, no exits._ The front led to a gunfight and Rachel was planted square in front of the back door. _Shit, shit, motherfucking shit._

Eve snapped back to herself to find Rachel pressing a pistol into her hand. She’d hung up the phone, and was ordering her to stay put while she flanked the men shooting at Tim. _Oh. Good._ Something about the weight of the gun in her hand brought her farther back to earth. _Focus, girl._ Four deep breaths in and out. Her heart slowed to a moderate canter instead of the gallop it had been at. She opened the back door a crack, peeking out. Rachel was crouched at the back corner of the building, firing at whoever was firing at Tim. _Shit, Tim._

Eve made her way back through the kitchens and the Employees Only door and sidled up to the front entrance. She glanced behind her. The employees and the few customers had taken refuge behind the counter. _Good._ More shots. She peeked out again. One man was down, not Tim. A quick sweep found him crouched behind the front of the truck, rummaging in his jacket. The only bullets she heard came from Rachel’s direction; Tim was out. Unfortunately, the shooter had figured that out as well. When Rachel paused to reload and before Tim could make it to the trunk to gather more ammunition, she heard a burst of gunfire as the stranger shot in Rachel’s direction while he walked around the car to where Tim was. The Deputy’s hands came up as the gun shoved into his back. The stranger frisked him, and after pulling out two knives and tossing them to the side, he repositioned the pistol to Tim’s head and faced them both in the general direction of Rachel.

“Deputy! I’ve got your partner here! How about you don’t shoot over here? You’re like to hit him.”

Rachel poked her head around the corner a moment and yelled back, “And I’m like to shoot you if you don’t let him go!”

“You know what I came for! And you know I’ll kill him if you don’t hand her over!” Oh, they would too. In fact, they’d kill him anyways before going for Rachel. _Fuck._ Eve dropped to a squat, tapping the barrel of the borrowed pistol against her forehead. The rhythm calmed her, drowning out the noise in her head. She tried to find a way around it, really she did, but either her mind wasn’t fast enough or there just really wasn’t another way. He wouldn’t take any of them. She wished she were as good a shot as Tim and could just shoot the guy, but wishing wasn’t doing, and a course of action was what she needed. May as well come to terms with it. She took three slow breaths, placed Rachel’s pistol on the floor, and stepped out the door.

“Hey!” She winced when he swung Tim and the gun around in her direction, but she needn’t have worried about an over-paranoid trigger finger. Anyone who worked for Rainier was well-trained. The gun returned to its place on Tim’s temple.

“Eve Carlan?”

“Yep, that’s me.” Tim looked murderous. _Yes Tim, get over it._ Although, this time it was difficult to tell what, precisely, he was pissed about at this moment.

“Well Miss, how do you feel about trading places?”

“Me for him, right?”

“I didn’t come here for anyone else.”

“Can I have a moment to think about it?”

“You can,” He shrugged, “but if it makes it any easier, you come willingly and you both live. You make me work for it, and he dies.”

“I won’t make you work for it. I just need a moment to wrap my head around things.” Keeping her hands up, she leaned against the door. “You work for Michael Rainier.”

“I do.”

“What do you know about why he wants me?”

“Not much other than you’ve got some property that isn’t yours.”

“He say what that property was?”

“It’s the classified sort.”

“Don’t you think if I’d stolen classified property, I’d be out of the country living the good life on some beach after I’d sold it to the Russians?” She stretched her arms. “Not here in butt-fuck nowhere Kentucky that’s for sure.”

“If you’re trying to tell me you don’t have it I don’t believe you.”

“What’s so bad about letting the government have me if I have what’s theirs?”

“It’s a bit above the Marshal’s pay grade.” He flexed the hand gripping Tim, getting impatient.

“Then they can hand me over to the proper authorities can’t they?”

“Stop wasting my time, Eve.”

“Don’t have an answer for that one, huh?” She raised her eyebrows. “Seems like you know I’m right and just don’t care.”

“You gonna make me kill him?” He ground the tip of the barrel into Tim’s head for emphasis.

“I told you I wouldn’t. But can I have a cigarette first? It’s been a helluva night.” She grinned. “It’s not as if anyone’s going to interrupt us.” She pointed to indicate the empty parking lot and road beyond. “You can shoot me if I make any sudden movements.”

“Make it quick.”

Eve slowly opened her jacket, and with an exaggerated motion pulled out a cigarette and her lighter. She put the cigarette between her lips and held up the lighter. “Y’sure I can’t change your mind?”

“I’m sure.” _Damn._ She took another slow, steadying breath. Nothing for it then.

She flicked the lighter, and the stranger’s gun snapped from Tim’s head to his own, and before he could register the switch, his finger had already pulled the trigger.


	15. koala

Tim stumbled, but stayed upright as his now dead captor crumpled to the ground. His shirt would probably be ruined. Eve let out a hysterical giggle, which quickly turned into a sob as the first pulsing headache hit her. She sat down hard on the curb.

She was dimly aware of Rachel shouting at them, asking what the hell had just happened. Her voice was getting closer so she must have left her position behind the building.

“He shot himself,” was Tim’s dumbfounded reply to her yelling.

“What?”

He was striding over to her, apparently oblivious to the mess on his shirt. Fleetingly, she wondered about the awful things that had happened in his life that blood and gore left him so unphased. “Eve!”

Eve ignored them and lit the cigarette, staring at it while she pondered taking a drag. She’d tried it once, and the oppressive weight of the not-quite-right air in her lungs had been uncomfortable for hours afterward. She threw it on the asphalt and ground her heel into the embers. Eventually Tim grew sick of being ignored and next thing she knew his face was in front of hers, and she was being shaken violently. Her head didn’t like that, and she gripped his arms, trying to stop the motion.

“Eve!” Shake. “Eve-”

“Stop it,” her voice was weak. She clenched her stomach, turning her head to the side in case she puked. His grip loosened.

“Are you alright?” His hands were lifting her head, pulling her arms away from her body to look for damage.

“My head hurts.” She breathed rapidly in and out trying to keep the heaving in her stomach at bay. “Just need a min’.” He shouldn’t have moved her head around so much she thought ruefully as she retched all over the pavement.

“Tim, call this in and go round up the everyone inside. I’ll go get her cleaned up.” Rachel’s face appeared, and she gripped Eve by the elbow, supporting her into a standing position. She didn’t need the help to walk to the bathroom; throwing up had calmed her system, but she held onto Rachel’s arm anyways. Where Tim was a mess, Rachel was immaculate, and proximity to her composure and clean-soap-and-perfume scent was calming.

Once inside the bathroom, Rachel guided her to a sink, grabbed some paper towels, wet them, and handed them to Eve to wipe off her face. “Stay here.” She returned a few minutes later with her purse and a styrofoam cup filled with gatorade and handed the latter to Eve while she dug some bottles out of the former.

“Deputy girlscout.” She took a grateful sip.

“Take these.” Rachel passed her two ibuprofen, which she swallowed gratefully. “How’s your stomach?”

“Thanks, i’s’fine.” Eve took another swallow and wiped her mouth. “Sorry for the hold up. We can go if you want.”

She got a severe, disapproving look in response. “Nope, you’re gonna take your time. We’ve gotta talk to the local LEOs anyways.” She wiped the edge of sink before sitting back on it. “What happened out there?”

“The guy shot himself in the head.” A well-arched eyebrow arched further.

Eve shrugged, taking another drink to avoid having to verbally lie.

o.O.o

Eve didn’t speak the rest of the way back to Lexington except to ask if they could stop for food again. This time they went through the drive-thru. Tim drove, his mind moving too fast over too many streets to sit still and look out a window. Raylan had been right about Rainier it seemed, but that only added to his confusion about the situation, and that wasn’t even counting the man who’d up and shot himself for no apparent reason. He didn’t even try to understand that one. His eyes flicked up to the rearview to Eve. He wasn’t sure he could understand that right now either. It was the second time she’d stepped up to save his life, and he found the anger he’d been holding onto at whatever it was she wasn’t telling him was seeping away. Despite it all, he was forced to admit to himself that, push come to shove, he knew where she stood, and that counted for everything. The realization let loose a wave of tenderness in his chest that he’d been trying so hard to block out the past couple weeks. Oh hell, who did he think he’d been kidding? He was screwed when it came to her, had been for a while.

“So let me get this straight.” Art was understandably worked up over the night’s events. “She,” he points beside him to Eve, “comes out. And instead of walking off with her like she was gonna let him do, he shoots himself clean in the head.”

“Ruined a nice shirt too,” Tim muttered.

“And you!” Art rounded on Eve, “Do the words ‘protective custody’ mean anything to you? You don’t even work for me, and I’m getting an ulcer just looking at you!”

Eve had the good grace to look halfway repentant, but he knew she’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“And how the hell did they find you anyways if no one was following you?” Now he was back to Tim and Rachel, but all he got was a double shrug.

“Maybe that’s something we should be asking the witness.” Vasquez was his usual grumpy self and was eyeing Eve with a naked suspicion that had Tim’s hackles raised.

“The witness doesn’t know,” spat Eve icily. “And it doesn’t matter either because as of now, I’m leaving WITSEC.” _Jesus Christ, woman._

“Not before you explain this.” Vasquez slid the photograph of Eve and Cipriani in front of her.

Eve didn’t spare it a glance. She knew what it was. “What of it? I had to pretend to work with him.”

“This was taken before Bobbie King ever approached you with the drug scheme. Try again.”

“Huh,” unconcerned, “Really?”

Vasquez was unimpressed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’ll be spending the rest of his life in a cell, but all this,” he gesticulated at the files in front of him, “is very neat, too neat. Put that together with the fact that you have shot, and killed,” he punctuated that point with a finger jab to a manila folder, “no fewer than four people since this started, and that makes me a little curious about what else you’ve done. Because I’m not buying this whole ‘my mommy taught me self-defense’ shtick.” He picked up the photo and held it an inch from Eve’s face. “So how about you try that again.”

Eve took the picture between her thumb and forefinger and laid it with slow, deliberate firmness on the table in front of her. “You think shooting a gun was the only thing my momma taught me?” She leaned forward with a hungry smile. “How about you and I step outside and I’ll show you something else.”

Tim swiveled his chair a fraction towards Raylan. “Pretty sure I just got a boner,” he whispered out the corner of his mouth. Raylan pinched the bridge of his nose and bit back a smirk. A swift kick in the shin told him Rachel had heard as well.

“Are you threatening me, Miss Carlan?”

“It’s _Doctor_ Carlan, and no, I’m merely suggesting you stay the hell out of my personal space.”

“Personal space will be the least of your worries when you’re in prison.”

“Well since you’re standing here making threats instead of arresting me, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’ve got absolutely nothing to hold me for.” When Vasquez remained silent, she followed with, “That’s what I thought,” and stood, turning away from the lawyer to the Marshals. “Thank you, for everything, and sorry for any inconvenience I’ve caused. Would someone mind letting me get my things before I’m on my way?” After a dumbfounded moment, Tim rose and escorted her out the door to the elevator.

The ride to the safehouse was tensely quiet, each looking resolutely at the road in front of them. He wasn’t sure how to convince her to stay, but he knew he’d hate himself if he let her leave. Tim had known he was in trouble the night she’d woken him up and spent the whole of it on the floor in front of the couch with her arms around him. Everything since then, every easy conversation, every stolen moment, had just been more layers and icing on the cake. At first he’d been afraid of having it, but now he was afraid of what would happen if he let it walk away.

Tim killed the engine and turned to face her. “You know you’re being a complete dumbass.”

“Oh please, what now?” she wasn’t looking at him, staring out the windshield.

“They’ll come after you again.”

“Yup.” She checked her nails.

“Then why leave WITSEC?”

“Cause Rainier’s probably got someone in the Marshals working for him, or somewhere else in law enforcement.” Now she turned towards him. “Thanks for telling me about him by the way. Could’ve stood to know that one earlier.”

“Why does it matter that it was him after you?”

“I’d have left sooner.”

“There was a theory you were working with him.”

“I worked alone.”

“Then tell me about the photo.”

“No.”

“Fine, you can tell me about it on the way to wherever it is you’re going then.”

“I think you have a job to attend to, Deputy.” Eve sat glaring.

“Oh, Art always gets in a twist over how I need to use my vacation days. I’ve got a lot.”

“So you go from an ice queen who can’t say two words to me to wanting to go on the run with me?”

He faltered, his eyes drifting back to the windshield. He knew why, but he hadn’t quite put together the words to explain it yet, then firmly, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“You know why,” he answered vehemently, finding the courage to meet her eyes again.

Eve’s expression was guarded. “How do you think this thing between us is gonna turn out? Cause this is how I see it going: We have fun for a few weeks and then one of us gets lazy and stops trying, probably you,” she gestured at him, “cause you’re a guy. Or maybe you think I’ll start letting myself go, ‘cause that’s what girls do once they get the guy, isn’t it? Then we start getting bored, and I get sexually frustrated ‘cause either way I’m not getting laid enough.” His metaphorical boner made a comeback. “And what if I get pissed because you pee in the shower? What if you have too many annoying habits, and I start to nag you about it and it all spirals down from there? What if you’re never able to talk to me about… _anything_? Then we fight and it sucks and you hate me ‘cause you’ve been fired, and it all goes down in a fiery explosion from hell.”

Someday he’d learn to use his words eloquently, but it wasn’t today. So instead of words, he hooked a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her face to his. He kissed her roughly, crushing her to him, showing her everything he didn’t say. Her mouth opened hot and wanting under his own, and he brought his other hand up, fisting it in her hair. She let out a half-breathed moan when his grip tightened and grabbed him by the collar, tugging herself closer against him. White-hot fire shot into his stomach and dripped lower at the sound, making him drunk, and all he could think of was hearing it again. He needed her, needed more.

His hands found her waist and pulled her over into his lap, the position made momentarily awkward by the narrow skirt she’d chosen for court, but she hiked it higher, his hands gliding up her thighs as it went. When it was bunched indecently around her waist, he discovered she was wearing the most deliciously sexy thigh-highs, and his erection twitched in hearty agreement. And then he was kissing her again, and she was kissing him back until they were both breathless and panting, fog starting to form on the inside of the windows. And when he finally broke away, opening his eyes, the heated want he saw in her face had him grinning up at her like a teenager on his first hook-up.

“We’re going to scandalize the neighbors.” She was grinning back at him.

“God forbid.”

“There’s a house right over there, Deputy,” she pointed out, “and I’m willing to bet there’s even a bed.”

“Are you propositioning me, ma’am?”

“Desperately and blatantly,” she replied, punctuating the admission with a deep, drawn out kiss.

“Well, if I step outside of this car right now, the neighbors are definitely going to be scandalized.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “I do believe that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“No it’s not.” And in a husky whisper he reminded Eve of the fantasies he’d once described to her if he’d been free to act on his desires, all while placing teasing, open-mouthed kisses down her neck. He reveled in the shiver that ran through her body at his words and his touch, the way her nails dug convulsively into his shoulders as if she couldn’t help herself. The idea that it was _him_ making her lose control was incredibly arousing.

“Well now, I’m at quite a quandary, Deputy. I _want_ you in that house,” Her voice was low, breathy, and he felt her lips and a quick brush of her tongue over his pulse to drive the point home, making his breath catch, “but you’re telling me I’d have to risk the mood by talking about baseball and grandmothers so you don’t scandalize the neighbors.” Then she quirked her eyebrows at him and her tone became playful. “And I know nothing about baseball.” And in complete contradiction to her wish of having him in the house, she kissed him again, this time with a slow, rolling grind of her hips against his, which only served to intensify his problem. Then the car door was opening, and she was walking to the front door. When she reached it, she tossed him a look over her shoulder. “I guess you’d better suck it up, Deputy.”

Jesus Christ, he was actually giddy, and shucking his jacket, he held it over himself as he followed her into the house. When he stepped through the door, a tug on his belt pulled him to the side, and he found himself face to face with a grinning Eve. He tossed the jacket somewhere behind him and leaned in, steadying himself with his forearms against the wall on either side of her head. His lips hovered above hers, teasing, close enough to feel the breath that came fast from her lungs.

“Hey there.”

Her grin faded, replaced by heat, and her fingers hooked more firmly into his belt, pulling him further into her. Soft lips brushed his as she spoke. “Glad you could make it.”

He kissed her slow and hard, relishing the feeling of control slipping away from them both as his mouth moved over hers. Soon her fingers released their grip on his belt to undo the buckle, and with unhurried, deliberate movements she brushed over the already straining tightness of his pants as she pulled it away and dropped it to the floor. He couldn’t repress the groan of yearning that escaped him, and taking her actions as permission, hurriedly undid the buttons of her shirt, pushing it from her shoulders before moving to her skirt. When she moved to take care of her bra, he swatted her hands away with a muffled, “Hey now, that’s my job,” whispered into her mouth. The first-time unclasping of the bra was one way a man had to prove himself in the bedroom, and he rose to the occasion with as much finesse as his eager hands could manage.

Soon all she was left with were the high heels and thigh high stockings and nothing else, and the fire that ran through him at the sight could have scorched hell. She was beautiful, and he didn’t even try to play it cool and hide his ogling as he smoothed his hands from her ass to her hips, squeezing up her sides and over her breasts. The primal, masculine part of him enjoyed the vulnerability of her nakedness while he remained clothed. She didn’t shy away either, and there were few things sexier than a woman with that sort of confidence in her body. In his experience it meant a lack of inhibition in other parts of her life, parts he was hoping to discover very shortly. A breeze blew through, and she shivered; in their haste to explore each other, they’d forgotten the front door.

“You gonna get that, Deputy?”

“I got distracted.” He swore the low, sultry way she kept calling him deputy was going to give him problems on the job. He was sure the next time someone addressed him as such, he’d pop a tent in his pants.

“Not by baseball I hope.” Her face was atwinkle with mischief.

He’d been sorely tempted to make a quip about grandmothers, but forgot about it when his eyes landed on her hip. He grinned. “You _do_ have a tattoo,” he observed, his thumb tracing over a phoenix that snaked inward from low on her right hip. It must have cost a fortune; the detail and shading were incredible, the colors all vibrant reds and oranges and purples, a rising sunset. “Why that?”

She brought a hand up to run her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, as she looked at him, unblinking. “It’s hope and a chance.” He liked it. He pulled her hips away from the wall, and starting at the tattoo kissed his way upwards, enjoying the way she arched into him, memorizing all the more sensitive parts of her. Soon it became too much, and she was hauling him upwards, tearing at the buttons of his shirt. One leg came up around his waist, anchoring him to her as she shoved off the offending garment and pulled his undershirt off over his head after it.

“ _Mmmmm_ ,” her lips claimed his chest as his stomach flip-flopped at the lascivious hum of approval. And then she was pushing off the wall, pushing him backwards and down onto the sofa, and the next moment she was on her knees, tugging his pants down and away, and her lips moved lower, closing around him, tongue swirling slowly downwards as she swallowed him. His head fell back against the sofa with a rumbling groan; he’d been fantasizing about this since the night she’d licked sauce off his finger. He buried his hands in her hair and resisted the urge to thrust. Her grip around him strengthened, her mouth and hand quickening their pace.

Oh that was good. That was…definitely way too good. Abruptly, he pulled her off of him and up to lay against his chest. Resting his brow against hers and breathing hard he murmured, “It’s, uh, been awhile. This is going to be embarrassingly short if you keep that up.”

She only smiled mischievously, pleased with herself, and looking up at him through lowered lashes slipped her hand back down between them to give him a languid stroke. He growled, leaning down to hook his hands under her knees and flipped her onto the couch under him. She giggled breathlessly as he pinned her, trying to reach for her prize again. Two could play at that game. He took the challenge and pinned both wrists above her head, the arousal in her expression only intensifying at being restrained. Wrapping an arm under waist, he brought his mouth down to skim along the planes of her stomach, slowly kissing a path from her hips up, over her ribs. Her breath caught when he reached the underside of a breast, and there was a soft moan when his lips wrapped around the peak, back arching off the sofa towards his mouth, fingernails digging satisfyingly into his shoulders. But her neck remained the most sensitive part of her, and taking her face between his hands, he tipped her head back to give himself better access. The sighing shudder that overtook her when his mouth closed over the space just under her jaw, sucking gently, frayed the last edges of his control.

He brought himself up, pressing against, but not breaching her entrance. He could feel how wet she was – _for him_ – and it burned how much he wanted her. “Eve –” his voice cracked around the unformed request.

“Yes,” more breath than word, a plea for him to do what he was already aching for. Her eyes were brightly dark, and the sight of her under him, hair mussed and wild, skin flushed with desire threatened to undo him.

Then she was pulling him up, hips straining to meet his, one hand skimming down to encircle his waist while the other grabbed a handful of his hair, both dragging him to her. And that was all the invitation he needed to sink himself inside her. Still gripping the sides of her head, he kept her turned towards him, relishing each expression that crossed her face as he pressed deeper.

After a few false starts accompanied by breathless giggles, they found their rhythm, rolling slowly against each other at first, and then gradually moving faster, gaining urgency. She was not quiet, and he savored each and every cry of pleasure, each keening sigh and gasping moan. Instead of ‘Deputy,’ it was his name that burst from her lips each time she begged for more, sending sparks down his spine as he responded eagerly to each plea of _please_ and _yes_ and _harder_.

But despite her obvious enthusiasm, he was running towards the edge faster than she was. He tried to slow their pace, but each time she would only pull him into another scorching kiss, all the while urging him faster.

Finally, he slowed, this time ignoring her protests. “Eve –”

She looked down, suddenly shy, worrying at her lower lip. “I’m a bit more difficult than some.” It was funny how _she_ was the one embarrassed by that.

He tipped her chin up, forcing her to see the sincerity when he told her, “I want you to enjoy it.”

“Just because I’ll go second doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy it every bit as much. So stop being a gentleman and fuck me like you mean it.” The last was punctuated by the dig of her fingers into his back and the upward grind of her hips, urging him into her again and sending a new wave of heat into his core. The wicked gleam in her eye was a challenge, and he was only too happy to oblige. So he did fuck her like he meant it – hard and deep and thorough – and when he reached the edge she _squeezed_ , sending him crashing over, his face buried in her neck, choking her name around his pleasure.

They lay that way for a while, catching their breaths, her fingers carding idly through his hair as he lifted his head to plant soft kisses on her mouth, his nose brushing sweetly against hers. When the after-tremors abated, she eased out from under him with a kiss, sauntering to the back of the house to freshen up. He followed after, and when he was done found her sprawled lazily on her stomach on the bed in her room, eyes afire in anticipation. He draped himself on top of her, pinning her as he swept her hair to the side to pepper kisses on the back of her neck and down her spine, hands sliding around her front to knead her breasts. She hummed softly in appreciation. When he reached the bottom, he flipped her onto her back, settling between her legs. That masculine part of him enjoyed the way her stomach muscles clenched and her breathing grew uneven at his proximity to her core. Ever so gently, he grazed his mouth over her hips, working his way lower.

When he reached her center, he looked up to see her hands fisted in the sheets, head thrown back, her body rigid in anticipation. And when he slides his tongue up her fold, circling slowly when he reaches her apex, the sound that escaped her made him stiffen again, thinking that perhaps it was worth it for her to go second if this was the show he’d be privy to. Every gentle suck and swirl of his tongue found her bucking upwards, each string of adoring profanity flowing from her mouth pleading for more. He could feel her coming apart, and he didn’t have to wait long until she was arching off the bed, crying his name in stuttering, uneven breaths.

She lay motionless a moment, boneless as jello, as he scooted up to join her. She was flushed with a sanguine smile that threatened to split her face in two. “Well, Deputy Dreamy, I think I like you.” Now it was his turn to be proud of himself, and he returned her smile, slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer.

He jerked once, the sudden falling sensation, as they drifted off into unconsciousness in a haze of sleepy satiation. She curled protectively around him with a murmured, “S’ok, -’ve got you.” His little white knight. She was like a tiny fierce koala. A tired smile found its way across his face at the mental image, and his dreams were quieter, more mundane, except for a few appearances by little bears in shining armor waving miniature swords at giant sandmen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this sort of thing is always way harder than you think it will be. Phew! Critiques and comments are welcome!


	16. napkins

“No,” she said calmly. Eve was proud of the calmly part. Tim’s lack of calm was understandable given that she’d cuffed him to a bedpost.

“You know what happens to most people when they assault federal officers?”

“Tim, I said I’d let you go, and I meant it. And it’ll be a lot sooner if we can get through this conversation.”

“Not much of a conversation when I’m in handcuffs.” He made a fair point, but she wasn’t risking the alternative.

“Either you stop griping about that and we talk, or I leave and tell Raylan to come find you.”

He glared but relented, “Fine. Talk.” It was a bit underhanded, but she needed him to shut up and listen. This could go well or very badly, and so far it was off to a rocky start. Maybe she should have just made him breakfast.

“Ok, here’s the deal: I’m going to tell you some things and ask you some questions.”

“And I may or may not answer.”

“And I accept that.” She moved from her position at the other end of the bed to his side, laying her fingers across his wrist. It was farther than she wanted, but with a little extra concentration, it was possible.

“What’s this? You’re going to take my pulse, see if I lie?”

“Something like that.”

“You know I went through SERE, right?”

“Yup, big bad ranger boy. I know.”

He sighed when she didn’t remove her hand. “Fine.”

“Look, I haven’t and won’t lie to you. I’d appreciate it if you could do the same.”

“ _Fine._ ”

“Where did you get the picture of me and Anthony Cipriani eating lunch?”

“FBI.”

“Who in the FBI?”

“Not saying.”

“Ok, what did Rainier tell you and Raylan about me?”

“He pretended not to know you.”

“Then how did you know he was after me?”

“I can answer all this just fine without cuffs.”

“Tim.” This was going to take forever if he didn’t stop bitching.

Another sigh, this time with an eyeroll. “Raylan went to visit your father.” _Oh. Mom and Dad are gonna be pissed._ “Oh, what’s the matter? You seem unhappy about that.” His voice dripped with over-the-top, obviously false pity.

“My father was not involved in anything I did, and I don’t want him to be.”

“He seemed to think he was somehow responsible.”

“There’s a difference.”

“Enlighten me.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Well then by all means, please continue. I can’t wait to see what the point of all this is.” Tim jangled his wrists at her.

“I set up Bobbie and Anthony.”

“Unsurprising. Why.” Eve hoped that his dismissal of her confession on that point combined with last night was a good sign.

“Just so you know, I made sure there is no recording device anywhere in this house, and I will deny it completely if you decide to tell anyone about this. I will also get away with it.”

“Yeah, yeah, just spit it out.”

“If he told Raylan this is his fault, then my dad also told him that he destroyed some of his research files that Rainier wanted. Problem was that he was in a bit of a hurry and wasn’t as thorough as he thought. He doesn’t know that last part, by the way.”

“And?”

“Rainier came to Koenensalz a few months back and asked to buy the research, what was left of it. The project had been scrapped and declassified a long time ago, so it would have been mostly legit. He offered extra if Bobbie could recover any of the work my dad had trashed. Problem was that Bobbie ended up finding part of it.”

“Wasn’t the research on Gulf War syndrome?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems pretty benign. I’m not seeing what the big deal is here.” He was bored, eyes rolled the ceiling.

“If someone destroys half the work of a three year project and immediately quits, it makes people want to know what was so important about destroying it in the first place.”

He looked at her sideways, conceding the point. “Ok, so he found it, and gave it to Rainier.”

“He didn’t get to give it to Rainier. At least I thought so. He’d only found part of it, so he came to me to ask if I could convince my dad to _remember_ the rest of it. Offered me a nice cut of the finder’s fee too. So, I poked around, erased everything I could find, made a brilliant business proposal to Cipriani, they both fell for it, and now they’re going to jail.”

“Not getting what’s wrong with Rainier having the research. And why bother setting up an innocent man just for that?”

“Hah! Bobbie was _not_ an innocent man. He’s done plenty of stuff and just managed to skate out of it. If you don’t believe me, just follow him around for a few weeks and hire a forensic accountant to do the rest.”

“That still doesn’t answer the question.”

“My dad realized that the project would turn up crap for fixing Gulf War syndrome. It’s too many symptoms that are too different, and there is no one fix-all drug for it. But he did find out that the drug he’d been developing would be useful for other stuff, mainly central nervous system diseases.”

“Sounds like it could benefit a lot of people. Which brings me back to the question you _still haven’t answered._ ”

“No, it never made it to human trials. Too many nasty side effects in the animal models.”

“That guy said you _have_ classified shit. Do you have your father’s research?”

“He didn’t entirely know what he was talking about, but basically yes.”

“And Rainier wants it back.”

“Basically, yes.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Before I answer that, you have to answer a question for me.”

“Fine.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Seriously?” Tim brought his hands up, showing her the cuffs as if she’d forgotten she’d put them there.

“Yes.”

“Well I’m kinda pissed at the moment.”

“Is that a no?”

“No.”

“No to which one?”

“Think about it.”

“Maybe that wasn’t the best way to ask that.”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell anyone about this?”

“You already asked a question. It’s your turn to talk. You have to tell me what you’re going to do with the research.”

“Well, I’m still not sure what the answer to the first question was.”

“Now you know how I feel. What are you going to do with the research?”

“I’m going to keep it to myself.”

That caught him a bit off guard. “That’s all.” His eyes narrowed. “You aren’t gonna sell it, not gonna do anything with it?”

“Nope.”

“Why? Seems unnecessary to keep it hidden. Also seems like you have an eager buyer.”

“I’m the research.” Eve desperately hoped she wasn’t about to regret this little leap of faith.

“Huh?”

“I used to have MS. It wasn’t pretty. And my dad figured he may as well take a hail Mary shot at keeping me alive and gave me the drug. It worked. It had a 98.5% chance of killing me, but I was pretty much going to die for certain within a year without it, so he figured what the hell, why not. So now I’d just like to live my life in peace. I’m not giving his work to anyone, for money or anything else, and that’s how it’s all going to stay.”

“And Rainier wants to continue the research? Improve the drug?”

Eve let out a breath. “No.” This was going to suck. She popped two of the codeine she kept in the night stand, and prayed it would be worth it. “See the napkin on the plate over there?” She pointed to the plate on the corner of the bed a few feet away from where they were sitting.

“Yeah?”

“Keep looking at it.” Eve waited until she was sure his attention was focused on the napkin before taking her second leap of faith for the day.

There were six minutes of solid silence as the napkin burned, turned to ash, and the ash turned cold on the plate. She choked down the bile rising in her throat as she waited. The codeine helped, and she wished she’d been able to take it sooner, but maintaining lucidity for what she had to admit was more important.

“Well… I forgive you for not mentioning that earlier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just bear with me here.


	17. breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was dissatisfied with the first version of this chapter I posted, so I've rewritten a huge chunk of it, adding stuff mostly at the beginning, and changing a few other things here and there. I had a friend in town, so I was stressing too much about getting the new chapter out in a timely manner, and I should have just waited until I was satisfied with it instead of rushing, so I apologize for that. Hope this makes more sense for the story I started.

_Well…well…yeah…huh._ Tim's brain was having difficulty mentally climbing the mountain of visual stimuli he'd just been exposed to. Sometimes crazy shit happens, like oh-shit-I-just-felt-a-bullet-wizz-past-a-centimeter-from-my-head, or oh-shit-what-did-I-take-last-night-and-why-am-I-wearing-this?-Fuck-I-hope-no-one-had-a-camera, or that's-the-third-four-leaf-clover-I've-found-this-week. Those things in life that freak you out and mystify you. He'd have given his left nut to feel the sanity of one of _those_ moments. There was nothing sane about this. This was…was he high? Drugged? He shook his head slowly, then faster. He didn't think so, but it wasn't like he'd tried everything out there, so the jury stayed out on that. Maybe a hilarious joke. Maybe both. The sound of a throat clearing reminded him to look back at Eve. She was looking at him with a mixture of hope and trepidation, maybe also seemed like she might be sick. Either way, there wasn't enough humor on her face for a joke, nor enough smugness or treachery to indicate she'd drugged or assaulted him beyond cuffing him to a bedpost.

"So…" He didn't really know how to finish the thought. Maybe there wasn't a thought. It was entirely possible he only emitted the sound to hear normality.

"…Yes?" The nervousness in her expression grew. That she looked like a baby deer about to bolt from a wolf made the situation more bizarre.

"Did you drug me?"

"No."

"Did I take something?"

"No." He stared hard at her, and when he was mostly certain she was telling the truth, the confusion only increased as each logical explanation for what he'd seen was taken from him.

"How…"

"It wasn't an illusion if that's what you were thinking."

"Can't say I know what I'm thinking."

Eve let out a breath. "That's fair." Neither spoke for an uncomfortable few moments during which she opened and closed her mouth a couple times as if to speak and thought the better of it. Eventually she continued, "I know it's a bit to swallow, but what you saw happened, and it wasn't a trick. I…did that with my mind."

He stayed silent, trying and failing to wrap his head around what he saw and what he was hearing.

"Are you…getting this?" Awkward worry still laced her voice, as if she were carefully approaching a scared wild animal.

_Not really._

"I understand the shock. It's natural. Tim?" A timid hand gently nudged his chin around to face her. "I know this is weird – beyond weird – but I don't have tons of time, so I need –"

"That's really cool, but I still can't figure out how you did it." His slowly fracturing sanity still held hope for a dose of the rational.

This seemed to deflate her, and a dollop of frustration was added to the worry. "Ok, what do I need to do to convince you that this is real and that it's what I'm telling you it is?"

He couldn't help the laugh that escaped him. _Well why the hell not?_ His sanity was dangling on a string before him. He could ask for anything, and since this was all a trick, he'd ask for the impossible, and prove it to himself. He maneuvered around the handcuffs to pick up the pillow beneath him. "Make it fly around the room."

She did. Three laps around the room, sometimes fast, sometimes in a lazy swirl. _Well shit._

When it landed neatly back in his lap, he picked the pillow up, examining it. There was no evidence of it being anything but just a pillow in a case, no strings, no anything. To be safe, he removed the pillowcase. "Again."

She grimaced, gripping her own pillow, but she did it again, this time five zig-zagging revolutions about the room. "Do you believe me now?"

He was having difficulty with his own reality at the moment. "Do a dresser drawer."

Absently, the thought occurred that he should have been surprised when a drawer scooted out of the dresser and wound its way around the room like the pillow had, but he wasn't.

"The lamp."

Same.

"The light bulb from the lamp."

And so the lampshade floated up by itself, and the bulb unscrewed itself and flew the same path as the lamp before it. "I can do this for everything in the room, but it will be the same."

"This is insane."

"It's really not."

He pondered that. There was a quote about this somewhere. 'The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.'

The pressure on his arm shifted. "Tim, I need you to say what you're thinking."

This time he dragged his brain through the muck, opening his mind for a moment to the possibility that what she was saying was true. A napkin had spontaneously caught fire. She'd sent miscellaneous bedroom accessories zooming around the room. How did these things happen in a way that could be explained otherwise? He trawled the muck for an explanation, dreaming up a myriad of possibilities and discarding them all as unfeasible. "This is a mindfuck," he remarked to the ceiling.

He felt the pressure on his chin again, tipping his head over to look at her, but this time it stayed, holding him in place. It took him a moment to realize that her right hand still rested on his wrist, and the left had maintained a white-knuckled grip on her pillow. "Tim."

"I believe you."

The worry and nervousness cracked with a sigh. "Finally."

Tim looked at the fingers resting on his wrist. "You're not taking my pulse, are you?"

"Nope."

He didn't want to ask about mind reading. Even with the clear demonstration he'd just witnessed, it still sounded too silly. "Then?"

Eve didn't answer immediately, just pulled her hand away and lay back on the bed with her eyes closed. She stayed far enough away that he wouldn't be able to reach her. As if he'd try something after that. Girl could be fucking Jean Grey for all he knew. "It's actually really way less impressive than it seems." She was turning a bit green about the gills.

"I dunno. If I could wiggle my fingers and light things on fire, I'd be pretty damn impressed with myself."

"I didn't fuckin' wiggle my fingers." Eve's voice was weak, and she spoke slowly, her stomach muscles clenching as if trying to keep from heaving. As pissed as he was about the handcuff thing, he wasn't enjoying her discomfort. Tim shuffled as close to her as the cuffs would allow.

"You don't look so good."

She didn't move, just mumbled. "It'll pass."

"Why don't you just wiggle your fingers and make it better?" He wasn't above annoying her.

Her eyes rolled back under her eyelids. "Oh Christ," she dug in her pocket and clumsily fumbled a key into his hand before rolling off the bed and stumbling to the bathroom. As he was undoing his restraints he heard puke splashing into the toilet bowl. Sitting up, he shook out his wrists and wondered how wise it was to become further involved in this. There were a few times in his life when he'd felt as if he'd go genuinely crazy, and today was rightfully near the top of that list. But he was prone to making good bad decisions and felt that nothing good could come of breaking tradition. So Tim pushed himself off the mattress, found his pants, and went to fill a glass with water before knocking on the bathroom door.

There was neither an invitation to enter nor a request to stay out, so he let himself in. Girl did look like shit, collapsed against the wall nearest the toilet. She didn't lift her head from between her knees, but a small twitch to the side let him know she was aware of his presence. He slid down the wall next to her and pushed the glass into her hands.

A half-closed hazily suspicious eye peeked up at him, "You're being nice to me, Deputy." As if he had the ability to be anything but for her. Damn woman was like to ruin his life soon, and here he was contemplating what sort of breakfast he could make her that she'd be able to keep it down. Jesus, he was ruined already.

"Or I came in here to bask in your misery," he tipped his hand to her, "which you rightly deserve by the way."

"Mmm." It could've been agreement, could've been just a sound.

"Is this because of the finger-wiggling?" he asked, wiggling his fingers at the toilet.

Only one of her fingers came up to wiggle at him. "Did you see me wiggle my fucking fingers?"

"You distracted me with fire. Still waitin' for an explanation on how that works, too."

"Yeah, yeah, give me a moment. This is weird."

"For you. This is weird for you."

Her head tipped to the side to look up at him. "Yes."

He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in front of her face. "See this? This is the tiniest violin in the world, and it's playing just for you."

"Asshole."

"The fact that you aren't trussed up in the back of a cop car right now says I'm not."

"The fact that you're not still trussed up in your skivvies and cuffs for Raylan to find means you're going to give me ten minutes of peace and quiet."

"Maybe you could wiggle your fingers and make me – Hey! Fuck that's cold!" Eve had upended the rest of her water over his crotch.

"Out."

"You dumped cold water on me."

"I guess you should've brought me warm water."

"The list of things you have to make up for is growing exponentially."

"Is it now?"

"Yes, in fact I think you owe me a beer."

A tired smile tinged with surprise crept across her face as she curled down onto the rug. "How about some bourbon?"

"You flirtin' with me, darlin'?"

She grinned and closed her eyes. "You say 'darlin'' that way again, I'll do more'n flirt with you." He filed that thought away for later.

"You've earned yourself ten minutes."

His culinary skills were less than impressive, but for the intervening ten minutes he cobbled together a breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs. When Eve finally appeared, it was with steadier feet and a healthier color in her face.

"You made cinnamon-sugar toast." From the happily surprised tone of her voice, he could have just handed her a dozen roses. "And eggs."

"Well, you're easy to please." The dopey smile spread across her face was irresistible, and the corner of his mouth tugged up in response.

"I'm not, if you recall," the dopey smile turned lascivious, as she put a slow, delicate bite of eggs into her mouth, wrapping her lips suggestively around the fork, "but you managed quite well."

The corner of his mouth tugged higher, and he turned back to the stove so she wouldn't see the puff of pride that rose in his chest.

"Hey, are there anymore eggs?"

"A couple."

"Good, I'm gonna need more food."

o.O.o

"You were puking fifteen minutes ago." Tim's eyebrow was raised disbelievingly.

"Yes, but now I need food." This was stated around a large mouthful of cottage cheese, as Eve stood flipping one last thick slice of French toast onto a plate. Tim grimaced as she slathered it with what most would call an unholy amount of butter. But most didn't appreciate real beauty when they saw it.

"You have a problem."

Her fork waggled accusingly in his direction. "Oh, I'm sorry. Is that your first or second breakfast bourbon?"

"It's been an eventful day."

"It's only nine o'clock."

"My point exactly."

Eve huffed in defeat. He believed her, and she was relieved that the biggest battle of the day had been won. She hadn't gone through that since they'd told her brother, and she felt it only fair to allow him some indulgence.

"So is this…" he waved to indicate the pile of food she was working her way through. "…a part of it?"

"Yes." She took another bite, chewing slowly while she contemplated how to best explain all of it. "We haven't tested it very thoroughly, but yes. Dad put me in an MRI once so we could see what happens. The first is the headache, basically seems like a migraine, blood vessels swelling up, usually accompanied by puking." She shoveled another bite into her mouth. "And let me tell you, throwing up in the confined spaced of an MRI is not fun. Then I get really hungry. Still not sure why that happens. It's all uncomfortable, but not actually damaging."

"Well, how did it happen in the first place?"

"Not sure about that either. And it's not like we were going to inflict that on anyone else. It was an early form of an imperfect drug. Most likely people would have died and we wouldn't have found anything out anyways."

All she got was a grunt as Tim mulled it over. Eve was incredibly relieved that he'd reacted so well thus far. Revealing all this had had her nerves on edge, afraid the absurdness of it all would be too much and he'd decide that she was just a lunatic with a fancy parlor trick. But despite his growing acceptance of the situation, he seemed to alternate between uneasiness and making jokes. Eve hoped his acceptance would breed quick comfort, but prepared herself for the secondary battle of overcoming the weirdness of it all. She soldiered on.

"However, it is, as I said before, not that impressive. It's not like I can move buildings with my mind. It's just little things. I can't do much more than the equivalent of picking up a thirty pound dumbbell. I'm not saying it ain't useful; I'm in this pickle cause it is, but yeah… there you have it."

"The guy who shot himself in the head…you did it."

"Yes."

"How does it work?" A million other questions he could have asked her about killing a man, but he didn't. Her body count paled in comparison to his, but he just moved right on past it. She wasn't sure if it was resignation or acceptance.

"I killed a man, and all you want to know is how it works?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, she could tell she'd phrased it wrong. His eyes flipped to the window, jaw set with his lips drawn in to a thin line. "That's not what I meant."

He stayed fixed on the window, staring at something far away from her. _Shit._

"Tim. That wasn't judgment of you. It was surprise that you weren't…I dunno, mad at me for it." His eyes came back to her but his jaw stayed tight. "Or maybe you are and just aren't saying anything." Her eyes dropped to the middle of the table. "I mean, I probably could have just made him fire into the ground until the clip was empty. Or bent the barrel, or…shit, something else. I know I should have thought through it better, but I didn't." When she gained the courage to look back up again, he was regarding her with his head cocked.

"Why didn't you think it through better?"

"He would have killed you, and then Rachel if he could."

"He said if you came with him willingly that he'd let me go. Seems like he wanted you alive. You could have gone with him and escaped later."

"No, he'd have killed you."

"How do you know?"

"I know Rainier."

"Then you had my back, and I don't see what else there is to discuss." _Oh._ She could have cried in relief.

"Thanks," she said quietly. _For everything._

"You're not finished with your breakfast. Keep eating."

"Ass." But the epithet was devoid of bite, accompanied only by a soft smile of affection. She took a hefty forkful before continuing. "It's basically just energy transfer, kind of like I make it my arm for a moment. I just take energy from one place and make it do something different. My lighter for example – I use the energy from the flame to maybe turn a doorknob, or pick up a book. Or sometimes I can heal myself a bit, like when I was shot those times. It's ridiculously complicated, a pain in the ass, and slow as hell, but it's also the only time it doesn't make me sick."

"How slow? When you were shot in the chest, you had to have had at least one cracked rib, but by the time we got to the hospital, it was just a bruise. And you didn't want x-rays."

"I didn't want the x-ray because he would have been able to see a healed crack in the exact place where I was shot. Would have been weird. But bones are easier, less complicated. Skin, and muscle, and soft tissues are tricky. I can't do everything, just prod things along sometimes."

"What about the whole not-taking my pulse thing? That didn't make you sick."

"I wasn't transferring anything, just seeing where it was. Costs me nothing, and it's a decent way to tell if someone's lying. Your brain lights up differently depending."

There was a pause before he spoke. "Is that an automatic thing or do you have to think about it?"

"It takes a fair amount of concentration. There's a lot already going on in a person's head." She was quick to follow with, "I wasn't planning on doing it again, if that's what you're worried about."

He considered a moment before nodding. "Well, I guess you'll always know how many breakfast bourbons I've had."

"Hey! I said I wouldn't, and I meant it!"

"Calm down," that delightful shit-eating grin crawled across his face, "But do you think you could try this on Raylan? I've got a few bets –"

"Tim."

"God, you're mean."

She smirked. "I got some handcuffs in the bedroom and the phone number of the Marshal's office if you want to see mean."

"Wouldn't you know, I have those too!" He dangled the cuffs in front of her before dropping them on the table to rummage in his pocket. With an understated histrionic flourish he pulled out the key. "And oh, look at _that_ , there's the key."

Eve looked from the piece of French toast on her plate to the irksome deputy in front of her. He almost had time to duck before it came catapulting off of her fork. Almost. But she was too busy laughing to defend herself when he launched himself across the table armed with the bottle of syrup. She shrieked, belatedly bringing her hands up to fend him off as she twisted to the side. But with his momentum and her frenzied retreat, all she did was tip out of her chair to the floor as he followed her over the table. With her effectively pinned beneath him and trying fruitlessly to shove him off, he slowly and unblinkingly took his time opening the bottle before deliberately squirting a huge dollop onto her chest.

"You _ass._ I am _not_ cleaning this up."

He smirked and lowered his lips to the trail of syrup dripping down her neck. "Never said you were going to."

"I…geeze."

"So about this Rainier dick…"

She snorted. "Well Dad, is super good at some things, but computers are not his strong suit. In the bits that Bobbie gave him there were video files of me, from when Dad first gave me the drug through my recovery phase. A couple of them had me…" She trailed off as his ministrations turned too distracting. "… 'wiggling my fingers.' Bobbie must have given at least one of those to Rainier. You can see why this would be useful to someone who runs a mercenary company."

"What's your plan?"

"No idea. He'll be a bit harder to put in jail."

He raised his head. "Yup, but the beauty here is that we don't have to."


	18. smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, let me start by apologizing for what has been a really long absence from this story. I have finally settled mostly into a new place with a new job (though, in full honesty it keeps me pretty busy and updates will still not be frequent). I wanted something more spectacular, but here it is. I hope you guys forgive me an enjoy it.

            _Come to Tennessee he said. It’ll be fun he said._ A scant month after Raylan had settled back into the humdrum life of the Florida Marshal’s office – if getting to only hunt fugitives again could be called humdrum; he could almost hear Art’s longsuffering sigh – he’d received a mysterious text fromTim asking for help on an ‘unofficial case’.

            And Raylan, dipshit sucker that he was, thought it would be a nice change of pace – another longsuffering sigh from Art…and Winona. Boy was she going to be pissed when he called her this evening. He had been thinking of convincing excuses for this little jaunt ever since he booked the plane ticket. “Man saved my life a few times” had a nice ring to it. It also had the added benefit of truth. The less guilt that showed on his face when it came time for explaining himself, the less angry she’d be.

            But now that he was staring down the barrel of a high-powered deer rifle and one very precise bullet hole decorated the dirt next to the toe of his left boot, Raylan was seriously reconsidering his decision to satisfy his curiosity about said case. This must be how that pregnant chick felt when Tim shot her kidnapper. Downright disconcerting. Now he could hear Art’s ‘told you so, asshole’.

            “Ma’am, could I persuade you to just put the gun down? I –”

            “No.” _I was asked here under the assumption that I was needed and wouldn’t be shot at._ He represses a sigh.

            “I would gladly turn back and go about my business, but a friend of mine asked me to come by.” A friend whom he was going to have harsh words with if he didn’t end up dead. Though he doubted the last part. She seemed like the type who didn’t shoot unless necessary, but the skillfully applied bullet-shaped dent in the ground told him not to press his luck with any particular matter.

            “This friend have a name?” _Shitwad McAsshole._

            “Most people do.” Sassing the irate woman holding the gun may have been a few rungs below the best choice on the ladder, but the flight attendants had been stingy with the peanuts and whiskey and he could hardly be held accountable for lapses in judgment after such trials.

            Whatever the woman had been about to retort with was forgotten when a moment later the front door banged open (he was impressed she didn’t move a muscle at the sound), and two familiar faces appeared on the porch.

            “Mom, it’s fine. That’s Raylan.” Eve was not nearly surprised or bothered enough that her mother still had a rifle aimed at him. In fact, the rote tone of her voice suggested this was not the first time this conversation had been had.

            “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he muttered, patience rapidly depleting. “Alright, where the hell did _you_ learn to shoot?” This last was directed at the woman who was apparently the mother to the walking trouble magnet. Raylan was strongly starting to suspect it was a genetic trait.

            “Idn’t she great?” He was going to wipe the deck with Tim’s shit-eating grin if the gun barrel would just go away.

            “Tim,” he looked at the younger marshal before swinging his gaze pointedly to Eve, “Eve. Would you kindly explain that your mother shouldn’t shoot me?”

            But Eve didn’t have to, as her mother was already lowering the rifle, neatly flipping the safety on as she did. Tim sauntered down from the porch, still amused.

            “Hey, you know what?” The young Marshal wagged his finger at Raylan. “She kinda reminds me of you. Likes shootin’ at people.”

            “Do you shoot at everyone coming to your door?” Although the question was directed at Mrs. Carlan, it was Tim who answered.

            “Pretty much.” He clapped Raylan on the shoulder. “Good thing she’s polite enough to miss the first time, eh?” Lovely.

o.O.o

            Maybe Tim should have been more sympathetic towards Raylan for the startling welcome that was Eve’s mother’s way of saying hello, but he was in a mood. And when he was in a mood he got ornery. He liked being ornery; it was too much work to have self-control and tact sometimes, and after the week he’d had he felt entitled to a little orneriness. Tim slapped a smear of mustard across the bread he was holding with more force than necessary and had started to throw on some lettuce when he was interrupted by James, Eve’s brother.

            “Dude. Dude, you gotta make it even.” He walked over and commandeered the bread Tim was manhandling. The guy had a weird hard-on for the art of sandwich-making. Tim stood back and let the man lecture him on the finer points of applying condiments and fixings to a sandwich, making sure that everything was placed in the right order so the tomatoes didn’t make the bread soggy or the cheese didn’t take away from the crunch of the lettuce. It was easier if he nodded along and let it happen. In James’ defense, Eve had loved the last sandwich Tim made her under the influence of her brother’s backseat driving.

            She’d loved it so much he’d even gotten a crotch grab with a suggestive wink. She was fond of doing that to him lately. Trouble was, each time she did it, that was where the action ended. Like this morning when he’d rolled over, hands wandering in what ought to have been exciting places, but after a lazy smile and a lingering squeeze from Eve, she’d toppled out of bed and into the shower, door closed uninvitingly behind her.

            It had been six goddamned days. Six. He hadn’t been laid once in near on a week, and he was antsy. For the first two days he’d chalked it up to having her mother and brother in the house. Couldn’t complain about your girlfriend not wanting to do the dirty when her brother may or may not have been asleep in the room next door. Eve was not a quiet woman; in fact her free and vocal enjoyment of each salacious act was part of what he liked about her. But when Elaine and James had gone out for the day, leaving them _all alone_ in a house with fifty-odd surfaces to explore and desecrate, she’d just _had_ to catch up on all the TV shows that she’d been missing. Not that he didn’t enjoy cuddling up on the couch with a big bowl of over-buttered (woman had a problem) popcorn, but throughout the five straight episodes of Game of Thrones, an annoying and too-loud voice whispered to him the hazards of their relationship Eve had listed off the night he’d finally had her, in particular the part about growing bored. He’d slapped it down. They’d only been doing the horizontal (and vertical and diagonal…) tango for about a month, and he wasn’t even a little bored, and she hadn’t seemed bored either, so…

            “Now the important part is the cheese. You gotta match the cheese to the mustard.” God, the dude was still talking.

            Tim suffered the Sandwich King’s lecture in silence a few minutes longer before finally escaping to the yard with two perfectly crafted culinary creations, one of which he handed to Eve, the other which he slapped Raylan’s hand away from and bit into. It was, he silently admitted to his own annoyance, pretty damn good.

            “So did you call me here for something besides getting shot at?”

            “I thought you might miss it, little taste of home and all that.” Watching Raylan do the bullet dance for Eve’s mother had so far been the high point of Tim’s day.

            “Yes, Raylan.” Eve had spoken up, shooting Tim a meaningful look to let them get down to business.

            “Oh yeah, and what the hell are you doing with her?” His erstwhile colleague had chosen to ignore Eve entirely. From the look on her face, it wasn’t going to end well if he continued this behavior.

            “Taking some mental health days.”

            “When I called up Art he’d said you’d been gone for two weeks.”

            “Yeah,” Tim put on his best serious look, which he knew made him look more like he’d just pissed in the communal coffee pot than actually look serious. “PTSD got real bad. I told him a nice vacation would sort it out.”

            “You’re wearing your gun.”

            “I like to accessorize.” Actually it made him feel like Eve was safe. As long as he had the chance to shoot something before it got to her things were mostly fine in his book.

            “Ok, you got us. Tim’s only kind of on vacation, and that vacation includes guns, and it includes me. Glad you’re caught up.” Rayland had the good sense to look at Eve this time when she spoke. “You’re here cause we could use some help.”

            “Didn’t you walk away from protective custody?”

            “Someone in the Marshals was bought and paid for, or don’t you remember people kept finding me when they shouldn’t have?”

            After a moment Raylan nodded his head in acknowledgement, gesturing for her to continue.

            “Rainier’s been trying to find me, and I’d like that to go away.”

            “Jesus Christ.” The older marshal pinched the bridge of his nose. “See I thought that trial was over and done with. What’s more, wasn’t him or his that that suffered for it.”

            “He’s got other interests.”

            “Such as?”

            She spared a glance at Tim, a silent request to let her do the talking for this part. “You talked to my father?”

            Raylan’s eyes narrowed at this new direction. “I did.”

            “Then you know he did some work for the military that Rainier wants.”

            “Then how come he’s gone after you and not your father?”

            “Dad left the country for a place no one can find him. That’s the sum total of my knowledge of where he is. If I don’t know it, no one else does.”

            “So Rainier thinks he can use you to get what he wants?”

            “That about covers it, yes.”

            “Say,” the way Raylan said this made Eve frown and Tim’s stomach drop, “You wouldn’t happen to know this guy,” he pulled out his phone and swiped through it until he found the picture he was looking for, “would you?”

            Since Raylan had finally learned to operate a smart phone, the picture of the man was clear, taken in the airport taxi bay, but the man’s head was only a quarter visible to the phone. Eve took the phone to squint, searching for some identifying characteristic.

            “No, why?”

            “He was on my flight. Kept makin’ eyes at me, and I got the feeling he wasn’t just flirtin’.”

            “Give it here,” Eve passed Tim the phone, and he studied the photo. It wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for. “That ring has some sort of military insignia on it. I’d bet my left nutsack he belongs to Florida-dick.”

            “Why the left?”

            “Huh?”

            Eve was looking at him with genuine curiosity in her eyes. “You never bet your right nutsack.”

            “It’s been through a lot.”

o.O.o

            Raylan had been followed. Eve both suspected and hoped that that would be the case. She’d been edgy for the past few weeks, waiting for Rainier to make some kind of move. Every day on the road between Lexington and Tennessee she’d expected to be ambushed. Nothing. Each day at her parents’ country home she’d expected an attack, and still nothing. Now at least they had a threat, and they knew where it was. Or at least they knew vaguely where it was. He was somewhere in this BFE town. Luckily BFE had only one bar, and it was a pretty good shot that if Eve, who spoke with absolutely zero Tennessee drawl, showed herself around said bar loudly enough she’d attract his attention.

            Eve looked over her reflection. She’d debated wearing the daisy dukes; they made her fit in a little too well, and she needed to stand out. But after a week, she was finally able to wear something cute, so why not. Plus, her ass standing out counted for something. She admired it again before giving her hair a quick run through and tucking a pistol into her purse.

            Her efforts were rewarded when she could see Tim’s reflection in the car window checking out her ass, and she didn’t miss the way he looked at everything her top wasn’t hiding as he held the door open for her. He did that sometimes, small old-time gentlemanly gestures like holding open doors and such. It was endearing. It was especially endearing when he’d try to brush it off as if he wasn’t really trying to be a gentleman, like he was uncomfortable with the idea. As if she’d trip and fall back out of the car with her ‘ridiculous death-trap shoes,’ and only his being there to hold the door would keep her from it. It was always worth it to poke the crease between his eyebrows when he scowled at her mentions of his gallantry. Sometimes Eve would return the favor, but she’d give his behind a good squeeze as he entered. The gesture went unappreciated in public spaces, but entering a private space there was always a decent chance she’d end up pinned against the door she’d just held for him, his lips somewhere on her body that was deliciously only appropriate in their seclusion, each of them pulling at clothing and seeking the closest surface – horizontal or vertical, it didn’t matter – on – or up against – which to satisfy their urges.

            “What’s funny?” Tim’s question broke into a particularly delightful memory, but as he was the primary object of the delight, it was hard to be disappointed.

            “Hmm?”

            “You were smiling.”

            “Oh. Pavlov.”

            “Huh?”

            “We’re here.”

            ‘Here’ was the back end of nowhere, a bottomless pit of shitty beer and surprisingly good whiskey – not that she drank the whiskey; but Tim had enthusiastically assured her of its quality – and, unfortunately, so far into that back end that no one cared about the ban against smoking in public places. Eve made peace with the headache she’d have later from inhaling clouds of cheap tobacco.

            A hand on her wrist pulled her back into her seat as she made to open the car door. This time it wasn’t Tim’s gentlemanly side making him hold the door for her, but the side that hated this plan to begin with and made it quite clear he was angry at her insisting on this course of action. She stayed put as he ambled around to her side, going the long way behind the truck instead of the short way around the hood. Her door clicking open indicated that danger hadn’t been spotted yet.

            Showtime.

            They’d all agreed that the best way to be noticed was a noticeable entrance. Agreeing upon the details had been a longer process. Personally, Eve had strongly favored a scene involving a public break-up wherein Tim left her for Raylan, leaving her in a vulnerable state and easily approached by strange men. “Raylan.” Tim’s large doe-eyes had gazed longingly up at the other man. “I missed you.” The intense concentration Tim was putting into the lovelorn gaze and maintaining a straight face distracted him from the danger of Raylan’s foot sweeping his own out from under him. Clearly that version of the plan was off the table. In the end Eve settled for your run of the mill public break-up where she burst through the front door of the bar, Tim trailing after her while she rebuffed his apologies for his dalliance with “that whore from Mason county, and really I hope that hick bitch was worth it, and if you don’t get out right now, the first drink I order will be a Molotov and I’ll throw it at your dick, so help me god.”

            Turns out they actually did have a drink here called a Molotov Cocktail – the bartender had noted the ruckus and obligingly plunked one on the counter in front of her – and it was, as expected, kind of like drinking gasoline. But Tim had dutifully followed the script and stormed out before his crotch could bear the brunt of her rage, taking up watch outside in the shadows should he be needed. A quick glance around found Raylan down the bar from her, pretending to be only passingly interested by the drama that had unfolded before him.

            Shortly following the Molotov, a couple shots of something else appeared in front of her. The bartender jerked her head at a gaggle of already sauced men at a corner table when Eve raised her eyebrows in question. Clearly the daisy dukes had been a solid plan.

            “Well hey there little lady.” _Seriously?_

            Eve turned, ready with a smart remark about the efficacy of shitty pick-up lines when it dawned on her that though the words were stereotypical, the accent was not. In fact the accent would have been far more at home in Central America than Tennessee. That voice, full of smoke and jungle heat, could have melted butter from a hundred feet away. Nor could the man who went with the accent have ever been assumed to call this place home. He’d gotten the clothing mostly right – jeans, boots, t-shirt. But it fit too well, the t-shirt was far too white, the boots didn’t have enough mud, and the only place a man like him would be found was as the sizzling star of a telenovella. He winked at her, as if his use of the colloquialism was a shared joke between them.

            Under other circumstances she would have considered herself the luckiest girl in the bar to be singled out for attention by such a flawless specimen of smoldering masculinity. Tonight was not that night.

            The hand he held out in introduction was a hand used to violence. The knuckles were unevenly sized as if broken by repeated, forceful impact. A smattering of criss-crossing scars suggested either a clumsiness in the kitchen or a decidedly unculinary experience with knives. And clumsy this man was not.

            With a smooth motion he took the stool next to her, a confident smile sliding across his face. “Marco.”

            “Evangeline.” It was useless to lie about her name at this point, and she knew it.

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Evangeline.” The sensual rhythm of his voice and the way his tongue caressed her name gave the sensation of maggots wriggling under her skin. Despite the fact that he had the easy manner of a handsome man charming a woman he felt assured of seducing rather than someone sent to kidnap her, something about him set the alarm bells in her head ringing on full volume. “May I buy you a drink?”

            Eve nodded.

            “I have a friend who would so dearly love to meet you.” The smile on his face never left, and Eve was left with the unsettling impression that he was enjoying himself.

            “Do you?” Another disconcerting realization was his ability to maintain eye contact for too long. A cobra slithering to encircle its prey before striking. If the man possessed a soul, even the most devout priest would be hard-pressed to find it.

            “And before you say no,” he continued, leaning down to speak as if whispering enticingly into her ear, “please keep in mind that the reward for your cooperation is the life of a man outside who I don’t believe has ever had ‘a whore in Mason county’.”

            _Tim._ Her heart thumped against her ribs like a jackhammer. Why did she send him outside alone? They’d all assumed she was the one in danger. They’d assumed there was only one person following Raylan.

            “I’m listening,” she replied with a voice that was far steadier than her nerves.

            “The ladies room has a window. I will be on the other side in three minutes. If you are there, your friend lives.”

            “If I go with you, what’s to stop you from having him killed anyway?”

            “When you go through the window, your friend down the bar from us will be given directions to him with the instruction to send you proof of his well-being. After that you will need to leave your phone behind.” When she continued to hesitate, he said, “But you may be assured of this: that if I do not see you in three minutes, he will be dead in four.”


	19. The devil inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took me a long time because I really wasn't sure how to get where I was going. Also, this is about to get a bit darker than I thought it would. Not sure it needs a warning, but I'm throwing it out there. Thank you to all of you who have waited so patiently for me to update. Fear not, I'm going to see this through.

            “Raylan, I swear to God –”

            “Tim, she ditched me.”

            “And you let her –” Despite the fact that Eve’s boyfriend was nursing a painful-looking goose egg on the left side of his head, he really looked like he was about to deck Raylan. James pondered whether or not he wanted to see it. But he had nothing against the cowboy, and they had better things to do besides stand around in the driveway and bitch at each other (tracking down his sister, who he would _dearly_ love some answers from right about now).

            “Dude, she was going to the bathroom, and nodded that everything was fine. I thought she was just going to the bathroom.”

            “You should know by now –”

            “That she’s trouble? Oh yeah, I know.” Fair point.

            “Will both of you fucking shut up?” He said it without anger, but Jesus fuckin’ christ, thought James as he threw the rest of the gear in the truck, how his sister had stayed alive in the company of these two bickering numbnuts was a fuckin’ marvel. She could be enough of a dumbass on her own, and these two seemed too easily distracted by dumb shit to be useful. Granted, he could understand Tim being upset. The man genuinely cared for his little sister. Raylan just seemed to be a walking midlife crisis, but he had a healthy disregard for authority and an equally useful willingness to bend the rules. James wasn’t sure how much of his annoyance with Eve was show, but Tim trusted him, Eve trusted Tim, and James trusted…aspects…of Eve’s judgment.

            James took a breath to gather his thoughts and pushed most of them into a neat, quiet box in the back of his head. Then he carefully filed through and picked out the pertinent ones, the ones that he needed to follow through with to get Eve back. He held one moment longer to another thought – that they wanted her alive. Rainier had expended a lot of effort to procure a highly useful tool, and he wasn’t about to damage it.

            What he couldn’t figure out was why Eve had gone and fuckin’ done a good chunk of the work for him and just walked off with one of his goons. Some guy in the parking lot had seen Eve climb out a window and get in a car. She was conscious and moving under her own damn steam. It didn’t make sense. He let that train sit in the station for a later ride.

            Tim was still yelling at Raylan.

            James reached through the driver’s side window and put his weight on the car horn. It had the desired effect of the two marshals finally shutting the hell up.

            “Hey, deputy dumbass and deputy dipshit.”

            Cowboy looked offended, and Tim looked a bit weirded out, but before they could bitch about each other or his new appellations for them, he carried on.

            “You have five goddamn minutes to pack your shit and get back out to the fucking car before I go get her without you.” To his mild surprise they followed orders, although cowboy seemed like he was considering letting those minutes pass him by. But at four and a half minutes, he gunned the engine, and twenty five seconds after that both men were outside the house – at a satisfyingly brisk pace – and they were on their way.

            They didn’t have as much information to go on as he’d like, but they weren’t flying blind either. Even if Raylan had all the awareness and observational skills of a lemon, Tim was sharp, had a good memory, and was able to find out the make, model, and license plate of the car Eve and her kidnapper had taken off in. It turned out to be a rental (surprise), which would have been great since all rentals were low-jacked, but either this one wasn’t or the guy had disabled it. Once again Tim had the next best thing: someone in the FBI to pull CCTV feeds along various routes. James didn’t ask. Raylan did his part and called in a BOLO for any cars with passengers matching their descriptions.

            James doubted any of that would work, so he just floored it to the airport and let them do whatever made them feel useful. When they arrived it turned into a scuffle over whether heading to Mexico or Florida was a better idea. Shit, it was like wrangling cats. But it was his plane for the evening, so James ignored them and told the pilot to get them to Florida double time. Dave, their pilot and a snarky sumbitch, said double time would require the plane to have better control over physics and the air currents to magically switch direction. James told him to shove it and put the pedal to the metal. Dave said airspeed wasn’t controlled with pedals, _dipshit_. James smacked the clipboard with the pre-flight checklist out of his hand and felt better for it. Dave always knew how to make him feel better.

            He knew his sister, and he knew Rainier – not personally, but definitely by reputation and paperwork perusal – and since he knew Rainier was in Florida, he knew that’s where Eve and whoever had taken her were headed. He doubted they’d be lucky enough for them to be found en route, but he said a silent prayer anyways. If he couldn’t keep her safe, he hoped someone was looking out.

            “Who’s plane is this anyways?” Raylan had the good grace to look impressed.

            “Not mine.”

            Dave and the rest of the crew were efficient sorts, so it was wheels up and in the air in under twenty minutes. They’d beat them to Florida at the very least, so James leaned back, shut his eyes, and brainstormed strategies for getting Eve back. She was safe. God, please let her be safe. Or Shiva, or Zeus, or whoever, I don’t care who the hell you are, please just let her be safe. She always tried so hard to do the right thing, but sometimes she just ended up mucking things about. The road to hell as they say. Raylan was right. Trouble.

            “Where’d you get the plane?” Oh goddammit, was it so much to ask for some fuckin’ peace and quiet?

            James opened an eye to Tim taking a seat beside him. The other man drew a baseball cap low over his eyes and tossed his feet up on the seat across from them. His posture said relaxed, casual. But the marshal was resting his elbow so that the cloth of his sleeve brushed James’ arm, and his feet were propped just an inch too close to his own. But James knew what he was doing, and semi-subtle invasions of personal space wouldn’t cow him.

            “She said you weren’t in the military anymore.” It wasn’t a question, but Tim wasn’t going away without answers.

            “I’m not,” James replied.

            “She never said what you do now.”

            “Haven’t told her.” Though something told James that that would change soon once they found Eve. She was damn persistent and had an annoying talent for ferreting out the truth.

            “How about you tell me.”

            “Well, deputy,” James let his head fall to the side to face Tim. The marshal’s lips pursed slightly. The guy really seemed to hate being called ‘deputy’. “How about you guess.”

            “How about you cut the bullshit.”

            “How about I forgive the attitude,” the guy was obviously upset, and James wasn’t an asshole, “and you forget about where I got the plane.”

            Tim was silent for a while, “You got anything else useful besides the plane?”

            “Everything else on the plane.”

            “Which is?”

            “All that fun shit they don’t let you take on normal planes.”

o.O.o

            _How. How did Raylan manage to fuck this up?_ A loud voice said it wasn’t just Raylan. In fact it was only a little bit Raylan’s fault. This was Tim’s fault. He should never have let her do this. His instincts didn’t steer him wrong, but he’d ignored them. He and Raylan should have just walked into the bar and hauled that guy out back to ask him a few questions. But no. He let her get taken. Well, she’d walked out – climbed – and just gone off.

            He knew why she’d just left though. He figured it out the moment he’d woken up on a landing strip in Florida and tried to rub the crick out of his neck. His tags were gone. Eve had left for him. The man who took her had shown her his dog tags, and convinced that her cooperation would ensure his safety, she’d gone with him.

            Easier than pointing a gun at her.

            Hell, he wished the guy had tried it the good old fashioned way and just pointed a gun at her. He snorted. World was an even crazier place if he was wishing someone had ‘just pulled a gun’ on Eve.

            If he’d just stayed with her like he _knew_ he should have, Eve would still be with him instead of on her way to Colonel Psycho. Ex-Colonel Psycho. Ex-Colonel present-psycho.

            The plane ride had given him time to think. It would have been better to use that time productively. But instead of formulating a hard plan, all that came willingly to his head were fantasies of what he’d like to do to Rainier once they got their hands on him. He may have played fast and loose with the Geneva conventions once or twice during his tours in the sandbox, but those would be tea parties compared to what he’d do to that man. In his darker moments, when his defenses slipped, his fears for Eve spurred his mind to imagine what they’d do to her, what they’d make her do. If Rainier knew what she could do, he’d find a way to make use of it. And a man like that would have many uses for her particular set of skills.

            What he needed was a drink.

            Or to point a gun at someone. Life was so much simpler when someone was shooting at you and you were shooting at them. God, how fucked up.

            Luckily Raylan, who seemed the least afflicted with concern for Eve, had made himself useful. They needed a way in with Rainier, who by now almost certainly knew that Eve was no longer the business of law enforcement, and trying to bring the man in for questioning wouldn’t work. Eve had been right about one thing though: there must have been law enforcement, most likely a marshal, in Rainier’s pocket. They found the leak and they might have their way in.

            From the airport, it was a quick cab ride to the Marshal’s office. Luckily it was still early when Raylan led them inside, and no one was likely to question Tim and James’ presence.

            They’d only just gotten their feet inside the door when Raylan stopped dead, and Tim nearly stumbled into his back before catching himself on the doorjamb.

            “Oh Jesus Christ.” Raylan sounded less than pleased. Peering around Raylan, he saw the source of the older Marshal’s consternation.

            “Rachel?” The hell was she doing in Florida?

            “Hey Tim.” Then she looked back at Raylan. “Which one of you fucked up this time?”

o.O.o

            It’s fascinating the things that happen to the human mind under duress.

            Eve had had a series of recurring nightmares as a child. Now and then she still had the same one or some variation of it. Each time she would be chased by someone with a knife. Sometimes by a man, sometimes a monstrous creature. And for years whenever the knife-wielding figure appeared in her dreams she’d scream and run, always too slowly, like she was trying to drag her legs through syrup. And it was always a knife. A gun would have been easier; being terrified of the pain from being stabbed made it a hundred times worse.

            One night, sometime in her early middle school years, Eve’s nightmare changed. She couldn’t run. Little Evie was trapped with the man with the knife, and there was no way out. But because dream logic and real life logic aren’t always the same, she didn’t scream. Perhaps it was the complete understanding of the futility of her situation. Perhaps her dream self was simply tired of the repetition.

            This time she turned to face the man with the knife, and she smiled. Not a sweet smile in the hopes he might decide to spare her. This smile wasn’t a smile. This was manic. This was a deranged grin in a place where grins didn’t belong. In fact, it was just the sort of sick expression of glee a man bearing down on little girls with a knife would have. And not only did she smile the way she imagined he would smile, she let her eyes mirror his own demented light. Fire with fire. Fear with fear. Eve stood her ground and invited him to stab her. She described with relish and a bone-chilling merriment the best places to stab her. Her neck would spray the blood he wanted to see, but wouldn’t he like to see her hurt? Maybe he should gut her instead. Confused, the man had paused. Then she’d reached out to take the knife, pretending she would show him how to cut her to bring her the most pain, make her blood flow the most freely. Instead she’d stabbed him. First a slash across the throat, then up under the jaw, then into his stomach. He didn’t die, so she kept going. He’d been so afraid. She’d laughed. She’d looked straight into his eyes and grinned, watching as he felt it all.

-

            “Kill him.”

            Eve squinted. It was hard to convince herself this was real.

            She’d had the fear that if Rainier caught her, found out what she was, that he’d make her do something exactly like this. If she’d ever decided to make money killing people, she’d be perfect. Lucky for the world she had empathy and a conscience.

            “What did he do?” Eve tried to sound bored, but even asking the question showed too much weakness, and she hated that she needed to know.

            “That’s not your concern.” If she had to consider the possibility, then it most certainly was; weakness be damned.

            “Well then hand me a gun.”

            “Miss Carlan, I think you and I both know that isn’t necessary.” Prick.

            “It’s _doctor_ Carlan,” she said with all the condescension that she could muster (which was quite a lot), “And since you know I don’t need a gun, you also know this shit gives me a headache and an upset stomach. Don’t waste my time. What has he done?”

            “He was sloppy on a job, left evidence.”

            She grinned, a mirthless monstrosity that was all teeth. “You’ll love me then. What was the job?”

            “Neutralizing a threat.”

            “Killing people.” Eve stepped closer to Rainier and concentrated very carefully.

            “Yes.”

            He wasn’t a sociopath; he was a different color of crazy. This whole room was a crayon box of crazy. Eve glanced over to Marco who stood amongst some of Rainier’s other men looking mildly interested in the proceedings. At least she could tell when Rainier was lying. He wasn’t.

            As she turned to face the poor man tied to a chair in front of her, panic rose in her gut. This was becoming all too real.

            She could just kill them all. All it would take is a quick yank on their spinal cords, a little shockwave into their brains. They needn’t suffer. Somehow she’d rather do that than kill a man tied to a chair, whatever his crimes.

            But she didn’t know where Tim was. She didn’t know who had him, how to find him. The only thing she did know was what would happen to him if she didn’t do what Rainier had just told her to do.

            Eve looked back at the man in the chair. He was scared. She looked away before she did something dangerous like wretch.

            There was nowhere to run.

            Tim or chair-man. It was easier when she thought of it like that.

            So she’d make the devil quake.

            Eve walked slowly over to the chair, and this time she wasn’t stalling. No, acceptance had come; now it was time for a show. She strolled. She didn’t suppress the panic, she let it in. There was a sense of calm to be had in that. The best lies are colored with truth. She took the manic sense of unreality and tweaked it, spun it to her will, and then gave herself over to it.

            When she reached the chair, Eve knelt, placing her hands on either arm. Her hands were stone cold steady.

            “Well sweetheart,” she began, and the devil in her leered predatorily, “it’s too bad that I am _so_ much better at this than you are. But then,” and she looked back at Rainier and Marco, holding eye contact with each as she said with soft emphasis, “ _no one_ is better at this than me.”

            Eve let the left corner of her mouth curl up in an understated smile that nevertheless spoke of a sickening anticipatory cheer. She crooked her finger and a shred of t-shirt tore off, rolled into a ball, and wedged itself into his mouth.

            It took concentration. Rarely had Eve tried to do so many things at once. The first was easy. A swift punch through the man’s brainstem and he was dead. But he couldn’t appear dead yet, so she squeezed his heart and pulled his diaphragm. She widened his eyes a little and tried to remember to make him blink every now and then. If her puppeteering was less than expert it only added to the show, making the dead man in front of her seem near-frozen with terror.

            She turned back to the men grouped behind her and looked around. Ah, perfect.

            With a coy smile she swished her fingers and a knife plucked itself from one of their boots. “May I?” she tittered. A good show had audience participation.

            Lingchi, or death by a thousand cuts, had been banned in China in 1905. The last official execution by lingchi had been performed on Fou-tchou-li. Technically this would remain true. The man in front of her had already died. Also, this wouldn’t be a thousand cuts. This was one long ribbon, starting at the base of his neck and slowly unwinding towards his feet. She left his face intact, pulling and squeezing at the muscles every now and then along with pushing air through his vocal cords to give the impression of agony. In her estimation it was quite convincing.

            Around the time she reached the middle of his chest, the first person lost their lunch. When she heard the heave and the splash of puke on the ground, she turned to wink. _Our little party, boys. Aren’t you glad you came?_

            By the time she finished, the corpse in front of her was barely recognizable as having once belonged to a human being. Three men were left in the room. The rest had gone to clean themselves up or volunteered to help their colleagues.

            Turning away from the wreck in front of her, Eve sauntered slowly back towards Rainier, knife floating low by her side. The headache and the effort of keeping her stomach in check were excruciating. When she reached him she lifted the knife slowly and steadily to Rainier’s eye level. He didn’t flinch. They both knew she wasn’t going hurt him. Instead she ran the blunt edge of the blade along his face like a lover’s caress, painting his cheek with a trail of congealing red. Eve looked at his neck as she traced downward. His pulse was above normal.

            She made sure to stain the collar of his cream-colored shirt, adding a little heat to make sure the blood would set. Not even bleach would get it out, and if he tried it would only ruin the rest of the off-white color. The small victories were all she had today.

            “I need a bucket.”

            “What?”

            She threw up on his shoes. There was a reason she’d eaten borscht for lunch.

            “Nevermind. Just give me four Excedrin and a bed. And in an hour I want food.”

            She didn’t bother looking at Marco. Indifference was best. Taking second place chafed like a hair shirt for sociopaths.

            Someone led her back to a room with a cot. She’d pull out the princess act and demand better accommodations later, but she hurt too much to care at that moment.

            With the last dregs of willpower she had left after letting herself fall onto the cot Eve flooded her body with as much melatonin and serotonin as she could and prayed to any god that would listen and even the ones that wouldn’t that she would just fall asleep.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I made you all wait an absurd amount of time for this, so thank you for continuing to stick with me.

            Unmitigated disaster. That’s what this was. Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely accurate. This shitshow was partially mitigated by the fact that neither Raylan nor Tim had done anything illegal…yet…that she knew of. And given the brooding expression that had been firmly plastered on Tim’s face since they’d walked in the door five days ago, she gave it 80/20 odds in favor of him doing something real stupid real soon. Thinking for one moment that a quiet office that ran like a well-oiled machine meant that she’d have peace was pure hubris, and god was surely punishing her for it.

            Rachel sighed internally, the only outward appearance of frustration the tap of a single nail on the tabletop. Throwing something breakable at a wall sounded pretty good right about now. But fidgeting and emotional displays were for people who didn’t have to be the boss. Some people found them cathartic, but catharsis was for after work when the gun came off her hip.

            “Do you actually have a plan for getting in this place?” Raylan, on the other hand, had never had a problem wearing his mood on his sleeve. Most men didn’t. Sometimes it was part of his charm; sometimes it made her want to kick him in the knee and watch him jump around yelping like a little girl.

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s a shitty plan. I was talking about the plan you were going to tell me about that doesn’t involve literal and professional suicide.”

            A snort came from her elbow. “Since when have you ever been worried about professional suicide?” Tim mumbled. “You been slowly strangling your career by the throat since before you started.

            “If you have a better idea, by all means, please tell us,” James replied, knowing full well that Raylan had nothing of the sort.

            Dr. Carlan’s brother was an odd cookie. For one, he was calm, way too calm, and he also knew way too much about Rainier. Rachel only quirked an eyebrow when he pulled a couple of thick files out of a messenger bag and spread them on the table, but she knew better than to ask more questions. The guy had ‘sketchy’ and ‘government’ tattooed across his forehead. And in the end, she didn’t really care because at least his suggestions were all legal. Unconventional perhaps, but legal.

            “You want us to serve a warrant in a building full of armed men?” Raylan leaned forward, spreading his fingers on the table. “Just the four of us?”

            “I don’t see the problem,” Tim said, swiveling his chair to face Raylan. Rachel worried for him when he said things like that. He was itching to shoot someone. He was like that. Everyone needed to feel like they had power over a situation. For Tim, that was having a gun in his hand and a target to shoot. But there was the inevitable realization, conscious or unconscious, that having control of your aim isn’t the same as being in control of whatever it is you wish you were in control of. The calm lasted right up to the point of the bullet leaving the chamber. She’d seen it. He never smiled, never displayed an ounce of satisfaction or enjoyment of a job well done. Just went quiet. She’d sympathized, but never fully understood until the first time she’d had to kill someone. She’d always thought shooting at a person and killing them would feel the same. She’d shot a lot, but killing definitely felt different.

            “Rachel? You can’t possibly agree with these two.” The irony of Raylan appealing for caution didn’t escape her, but now wasn’t the time for levity.

            “Much as it pains me, I agree with Mr. Carlan. Rainier’s paid off a lot of people. And we don’t know who he’s still paying. Bringing anyone with us could be even riskier.” And that’s what really pissed her off.

            A few months back, when Raylan and Tim had been ambushed in the basement garage of the courthouse Rachel had found it odd – infuriating, and odd. When she and Tim had been followed and ambushed outside that gas station, Rachel had decided the matter bore looking into. All she’d gotten as far as the Marshals was that someone in the Florida and D.C. offices had been accessing files. And it wasn’t overtly suspicious, just enough to make her wary. But Tim had told her and Art where he was going. Then he’d sent an email telling Rachel they were headed to Oregon. On a whim, she’d sifted through logs of people accessing the Oregon office. Within forty-eight hours there’d been traffic between the systems in Oregon and Kentucky and Florida. It was enough that Art agreed to hold down the fort while she paid Raylan a visit.

            “Well when are we starting this rodeo? Sundown? Going for the midnight surprise?”

            “No,” James and Tim reply in flat unison.

            “We’ll go in the morning. Everyone’s always fresh and optimistic then,” James continued, “if that’s alright with you ma’am.” The ‘ma’am’ rolled off his tongue like practiced military, not cop, and Rachel wondered again just exactly how Mr. Carlan had inserted himself into all this.

            The three men in the room were looking to her for a decision. Right, look at mom to settle your arguments boys. Tim and James might have been waiting for a decision, but they’d do what they wanted no matter what she said. Christ on a cracker, this was about as bad as following Raylan around and mopping up his messes. At least she liked Eve better than Ava Crowder. Her whole family might be a bit shady, but her heart was in the right place.

            “Tomorrow morning it is.”

o.O.o

            Raylan had been tapping his pen on the car window for the past half hour, and not one person had gotten annoyed at him. It was worrying. Tim should’ve been telling him to knock it off with some vulgar threat, and Rachel should have grabbed it out of his hand twenty-nine minutes ago and whacked him with it. James…he didn’t know what James ought to have done. The man was weird. Had admirable focus though. Raylan kind of had the feeling he could fire a .45 next to the man’s ear and he wouldn’t even flinch. He was tempted to try it sometime. Raylan didn’t know better. He’d only known better about anything twice in his life, and today was all about sticking with tradition.

            “No movement.” Tim continued to stare into the binoculars anyway. He was nervous, probably more nervous about his girl than anything else, which Raylan found a shade unfair given he was the one that dragged them into this whole mess. Actually, Eve did this, Tim was forgiven. Tim was just a dumbass.

            Raylan threw another assessing glance at Eve’s brother. Wasn’t that he didn’t like the man, but something was off-kilter about the whole clan. He’d known exactly what he was going to do before they even got to the airport; Raylan was sure of it. He’d always just seemed a bit anal retentive before, but now it came off like an overload of cold calculation. Raylan was also sure James’d find a way to go through with the whole cockamamie plan with or without their help, and of course Tim would have followed, which was the only reason he’d gone along with it. God, why did he have to be so predictable? That and he maybe a little owed Tim for constantly putting up with his shit. And maybe he a little owed Rachel the service of helping her catch the leak in the Marshal’s service. And maybe he was a little bored at work lately and just needed a breather from good decisions. God knew there’d been too many of those lately.

            “Raylan, I swear to almighty god, you don’t stop, that pen is going to be your new prince albert.” Finally, after thirty seven minutes, Tim had stopped with the broody-staring through binoculars shit. Raylan is glad to see a little bit of normal Tim shine through. The man kept speaking in single syllables, and it had becom downright disconcerting.

            “I didn’t know you were kinky, Tim.”

            “Kids,” Rachel interjects, “shut up.” But she’s finally smiling too. It’s not terrible being back at work with them again.

            Ten more slow minutes crawl by as they continue to wait for whatever signal James swears is coming.

            “So this is fun, the four of us just waltzing in to reverse-kidnap Eve with no back up. Any reason we’re still just sittin’ here?”

            “Don’t know about you, but I wasn’t plannin’ on dancin’ during this little outing.”

            “Waiting on someone,” was all James said.

            “Care to elaborate?”

            “A guy.”

            Now that was just damn unfair. Raylan didn’t like taking so much on faith, but the man was just here to rescue his sister, so…

            “How much longer are we going to be here?” Rachel’s patience was finally starting to wear thin as well.

            “He should ha–”

            Tim cut James off. “Window, two o’clock.”

            Raylan scanned the windows for whatever it was Tim was looking at. Most were closed against the oppressive Florida heat, something he was still re-acclimating to.

            One of the open windows was occupied by a guy taking a smoke break. It didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, but after a moment Ryalan saw the guy give them a small wave followed by signing out three nmbers. Two, four, seven.

            “That a room number?”

            “Yeah,” James said, opening the car door. “Second floor, room forty-seven. Let’s go. Hide the badges till we get inside.”        

o.O.o

            _Please let me die. Just keel over and die. Tim. Jesus, I need an IV. And food. Tim. I’ll kill them all. Let me live long enough to end them, please. I hate killing people. I’ll kill them for making me kill people. Tim._

            Eve’s thoughts ran into each other like paint on an upturned palette, and she hadn’t the energy to organize them or stop the flow. Despite her exhaustion and the early hour, she’d woken up and couldn’t find her way back into unconsciousness.

            Rainier had put her through it for a week. He’d forced her to show him the limits of her abilities, using Tim as a threat each time he felt she was holding back. Every day her head felt like it was being split open with a chisel and hammer from the inside, and her eyeballs were being pumped too full of fluid and ready to burst. When she wasn’t puking, she was gorging herself on as much food as she could get her hands on, hoping that she’d have a chance to digest it without being forced to do something that would make her throw it up again, which was seldom the case. Rainier fed her a steady supply of cheeseburgers and shitty steak, which meant that she spent too much of her free time on or over the toilet rather than recovering from his ‘practice sessions.’ At least if they were gonna make her break her vegetarianism they could have given her bacon. Shitty fucks. Between his tests and the food, she was constantly fighting to stay hydrated. Some days she’d put in enough effort early enough that she’d just pass out and save herself the trouble of this circus.

            The second day Eve had tried the princess act, demanding better rooms and monetary compensation as a valuable member of his team. Rainier didn’t laugh, but Eve was sure that had he not been witness to the previous night’s deranged act he might have. He knew she wouldn’t develop Stockholm syndrome, and he also knew he had her by the balls. All she got was a curt “no,” didn’t even have to remind her of Tim.

            So Eve settled for stony quiet. He would get nothing from her but bored disdain, and despite the physical agony she was so constantly in, that was all he got. She performed until she saw stars, lost her lunch and breakfast, and didn’t even realize the blood coming out of her nose until she tasted it, but damned if she wasn’t going to muster the strength to wipe her nose on his tie. It was pathetic, but it was all she had. On day four he finally cottoned on and stood on the walkways above her. Eve had to wipe her nose on her own shirt, but him steering clear of her was the most satisfying moment she’d had since arriving.

            The other small sliver of brightness was that Rainier’s men generally left her alone. They might work for a nut job, but apparently skinning someone alive (they’d thought) was just a little too creepy for their delicate sensibilities. Where was that good judgment of character when they were job-hunting? They all seemed _pretty sure_ that she wasn’t about to kill them, but every time she smiled (it was becoming entertaining) at them they found something else to look at, like the nearest exit. One or two looked curious rather than revolted, which was creepy as shit, and she kept an eye on those ones, but Eve wasn’t worried. Anyone got weird and killing would get real easy real quick. That the thought of killing being easy had made it to her consciousness was disconcerting.

            Around day three Eve had briefly pondered what it would be like to kill herself, but mom would cry. Eve had seen her mom cry once, and she’d never wanted to see it again. They’d probably kill Tim too. She’d only hurt people, and after some thought she realized she didn’t want to die anyways. And like she was gonna let some shitwipe like Rainier kick her down. That should have brought her hope, and maybe someday it would, but for now she just wanted to feel nothing. Well, she already felt nothing. She wanted to feel a different sort of nothing – the sort of nothing where you can forget that you feel nothing. The only thing she felt besides nothing was the terror that Rainier would ask her to kill someone else, and each night she dreamt of a wrecked corpse, face contorted in fear.

            Sometimes she just considered shang-hai-ing the whole place, just walking through and killing everyone in it. But then Tim would die, and it wouldn’t even be worth it because she’d only get a third of the way through before she passed out and was hauled back to her room. Actually, they’d probably just kill her…which wasn’t awful…Fuck, she didn’t even bother giving herself a mental shake, just sort of let the thought go. Who knew circular thinking took so much energy? And that one could indeed get a headache from too much thinking? That was bullshit.

            There was tapping on the door _._ Fuck, what time was it? The answer was always ‘too fuckin early for this shit’. It felt like she was always tired. Wiggling her fingers (damn Tim for getting that phrase stuck in her head) took effort, she never got enough calories, and sleep didn’t exactly come easy (or stay) these days. All of it meant that whatever they fucking wanted at this hour was just too fuckin much. The damn door was practically half glass; couldn’t they see she was asleep?

            Footsteps entered anyways. Eve thought about pretending to be in a coma. At this point it wouldn’t have been terribly difficult or implausible, but then they might do something drastic and uncomfortable to pull her out of it. Didn’t mean she was going to do them the courtesy of sitting up.

            “Miss Carlan.”

            “ _Doctor_ Carlan.” _Shove it._

            Rainier ignores the correction. “I have a job for you.”

            That woke Eve up in short order, knocking the sleep from her head with all the gentleness of having a brick dropped on her head. She was suddenly too hopped up on adrenaline to remember if she’d flinched. Hopefully that hadn’t happened. Making a show of groaning and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and generally acting put upon rather than terrified took the edge off. Giving herself a character had made these little encounters more bearable. Maybe it provided distance, maybe the illusion of some semblance of control.

            “We’re on a schedule, Miss Carlan.” She didn’t bother correcting him again. And since when were they on a schedule?

             “What do you want? And I want something besides a damn cheeseburger afterwards.” She missed salad. Who the fuck could say they miss salad?

            “Make it look natural.”

            And there it was. Jesus, she’d prayed every day that this wouldn’t happen again. Eve raised her eyes, hoping she didn’t look as sick as she felt.

            A short man in handcuffs is pushed forward. He had maybe four inches on her and was too slender to be one of Rainier’s goons. The sinking feeling that she’d felt upon their entry intensified.

            “What did this one do?”

            “None of your concern.”

            Eve stood, ignoring Rainier, and laid a hand on the guy’s shoulder, the tip of her thumb barely grazing his neck. He jerked back, but she readjusted her hand to the same position. Keeping her face  carefully blank, she asks, “What did you do?”

            No answer.

            “What did you do?”

            “Miss Carlan –”

            “Shut up Rainier.” Then to the man in front of her, “Does he just feel like murdering you, or did you fuck up a job?”

            Still no answer, but the rising panic in his face was a bad sign. There was no way this guy deserved death.

            Turning to Rainier, “Somebody better start talking. Why do you want him dead?”

            “Same reason as the last guy.”

            “Nice try.” Rainier’s mouth thinned. Fuck his ‘we’re on a schedule’ bullshit. “This will go faster if you just tell me. And I ain’t doing shit, till you do.”

            “Do the job, Doctor Carlan.” Oh, now he was trying to butter her up. Desperation. Interesting.

            The poor guy was visibly shaking. Eve did her best to focus, but fear was fighting a winning battle against it. “Do you or have you ever worked for this man?” she asked, indicating Rainier.

            A small shake of the head. Truth.

            “Have you hurt someone?”

            Another shake. Also truth.

            Tim or a stranger.

            Fuck.

            She can’t. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck. Tim or an innocent stranger. A scared-out-of-his-mind-cause-he’s-about-to-die-alone-in-a-den-of-murderous-crazies-away-from-his-family-and loved-ones stranger.

            “Let me see Tim.”

            “This isn’t up for negotiation.”

            “I don’t see Tim, I don’t do the job.”

            “Do the job, and I’ll consider it.” That was the weakest, most obvious ‘no’ she’d ever heard, not to mention a total lie. If Tim got close enough, she’d kill them all and run, taking him with her, and Rainier must that, but he wasn’t admitting it.

            “Why won’t you let me see him?”

            “As I said, we’re on a schedule.” Eve let her hand drop from the stranger’s shoulder and turned to Rainier, giving him her full focus and attention. It was harder since she wasn’t touching him.

            “Where is he?”

            “He’s safe.” Truth. “For now.” A…halftruth? She didn’t understand the weird patterns of truth and lies coming out of his mouth.

            She took a stab in the dark. “He’s not here.”

            “No.”

            “Then get him on the phone; I don’t need to see him in person.”

            Hesitation. ‘Safe’ he’d said. Fuck.

            “You don’t have him.”

            Rainier was quick, and days of physical strain had made Eve woefully slow. Her eyes saw the gun come out of his jacket, but her mind couldn’t keep up enough to stop what was about to happen.

            Her hands came up in an instinctive and – in hindsight – ineffective attempt to shield herself, but a split-second later when the shot came, she didn’t feel the impact of a bullet. Instead, the only thing she heard was shattering glass as the window of her door exploded inward.


End file.
